The Time of My Life
by marcallie
Summary: When a teenage girl goes missing from a small North Carolina town, the BAU races against time to find her before it's too late.
1. You can't win no matter what you do

In a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, Frankie Tucker finally saw exactly what he had been waiting for. A tall man with a lean frame brought about by years of preferring cigarettes to actual food, Frankie was a busboy at the Silver Steel Diner in Lake Lure, and he was just about to take a smoke break outside the back door by the kitchen when he saw them come in. A family of four, with a mother and father and two teenaged daughters, had just been seated by the hostess in the red booth furthest from the entrance. One of the daughters was what most would consider classically good looking, with long dark hair and rather obvious makeup. The other daughter was much plainer, with no makeup at all that Frankie could see. He might not have noticed her at all – he imagined most people did not – except he had been looking for this exact family dynamic for so long.

Instead of taking his break, Frankie sidled over to the blue booth just before theirs and pretended to refill the salt and pepper shakers while he took a closer look. The older daughter was complaining that she wasn't going to get to see her boyfriend because her parents had insisted on taking this lame vacation, and why would anybody want to visit a lakeside resort in the middle of the winter anyway? She yammered on and on, and the parents appeared to be paying even less attention to her than Frankie was. But the younger daughter . . . yes, the younger daughter was not only ignoring her sister, she had pulled out a book. And it didn't look like a fashion magazine, or even a young-adult romance; he couldn't quite see the title, but he imagined it was one of the classics: _Jane Eyre_ maybe, or even Shakespeare. He moved around to the side of the table nearest to them, thinking perhaps he could drop something, get the girl to look up at him. There was just one more thing he had to see.

"Frankie," called the manager of the diner. "What the heck are you doing?"

Frankie knocked the salt shaker over he was so surprised, and had to throw a pinch over his shoulder before he could respond. "Just fillin' the shakers, Ms. Nance," he answered, quickly wiping the rest of the spilled salt onto the floor.

"Did anybody ask you to do that?" The old biddy didn't even give him a chance to reply before harping on. "I don't think so."

"I noticed the last people at this table had to borrow a shaker from another booth, so I just thought . . . "

"Don't. Don't think. Nobody is paying you to think." By this time she was right beside him, breathing stale cigarette into his face. Frankie loved the cigarettes himself, but the after-smell on someone else, particularly someone as repulsive as his manager, was disgusting.

"No, ma'am," Frankie mumbled. "I'm going to take my break now." He stumbled past the booth where the family sat. The parents and the older daughter seemed not to have noticed the altercation, but the younger girl was looking at him with sympathy in her eyes. He glanced at her briefly, noticing again her plain features and her rather oversized nose, and as he continued down the hallway and out the back door, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. He just knew she was going to be exactly what he needed.

Derek Morgan glanced at the clock sitting on his desk, willing the hands to move more quickly toward five o'clock. He and his girlfriend Savannah had dinner reservations at a hot new restaurant on DuPont Circle, and he really, really wanted to make it out of the office without getting called away on a case. The last three times he and Savannah had had plans one or the other of them ended up having to work, and while they both understood that it was the nature of their jobs – his as an elite FBI profiler, hers as one of the top doctors at George Washington University Hospital – it was seriously time for them to have a little serious time together. Morgan was actually toying with the idea of asking Savannah to move in with him, if for no other reason than that they might get to see each other more than once a fortnight if they lived under the same roof. One more hour and he could hotfoot it out of the FBI building in Quantico, stop by his apartment and put on his finest attire, and meet his woman for an elegant dinner and an even more elegant dessert at her place. He was so enjoying contemplating it, the knock on his door made him jump.

The woman who stuck her head in the door, while not Savannah, was also someone he considered _his_ woman, in a totally different way. "Penelope," he purred, a slow smile spreading across his face. "To what do I owe the pleasure? And don't tell me you're here because we have a case, because I don't want to hear it."

"No, no case," Penelope Garcia assured him, slipping the rest of herself into the room. "I just noticed that you skipped lunch today, so I brought you a cupcake from the bakery across the street. Can't have you wasting away all alone in your office, can we?"

Morgan's grin widened even further as he noted that Garcia looked suspiciously like a cupcake herself. The green taffeta skirt mimicked the paper lining, while the pink top boasted flicks of color akin to the sprinkles in the icing. Even the red bow in her hair could be considered the cherry on top. "Maybe I'll just skip the cupcake and take a bite out of you instead," he suggested.

Rather than being offended, Garcia gave as good as she got. "Like you could handle that kind of sugar rush," she demurred. She leaned across his desk and dabbed the cupcake in her hand against his nose, leaving a dot of icing on the end. "Better stick with the baked goods." She laid the pastry down on his desk and spun back out of the office as quickly as she had arrived. "Besides, I have work to do. And you have exactly," she checked the pink and green Swatch on her arm, "forty-seven minutes before you head out to meet your own little cupcake. With any luck, you and I will not see each other again until Monday morning."

"No offense, Mama, but I certainly hope so." Morgan chuckled as he wiped the frosting off his nose and took a bite out of the offered sweet.

Alas, it was not to be. Twenty-two minutes later, Garcia stuck her head in the door again, but this time without the pastries or the innuendos. "Bad news, stud muffin."

"We've got a case?" Morgan shook his head and pulled out his cell phone, ready to call Savannah and cancel.

"We've got a case," Garcia confirmed.

"Where are we going?" he asked as he waited for his girlfriend to pick up.

"North Carolina. A little town up in the mountains. There's a teenage girl missing, and from what I've seen so far, she's not the first."


	2. Some people count and some people don't

Spencer Reid enjoyed being the first one in the round table room at the BAU so that he could observe the other members of his team as they arrived. Despite the ban on intra-office profiling, he enjoyed trying to gauge the frame of mind of each of his teammates based solely on their expressions and actions as they entered the room. Reid knew that reading other people face-to-face was the hardest part of profiling for him, and he figured the extra practice honed his skills and made him better at his job. Besides, it was fun, knowing beforehand what his friends were thinking and feeling, and it helped him to avoid some of the social pitfalls that he seemed to fall into so readily.

Take now, for instance. Even though Derek Morgan had not said a word when he entered the room, Reid could tell by the tension in his forehead that he was unhappy. His estimation was supported by the fact that Morgan took a chair by himself, choosing not to sit next to Reid. Because he could sense the tension in his friend, Reid knew not to take it personally that Morgan sat away from him and did not engage in idle chatter while they waited for the rest of the team. Pairing that with the knowledge that Morgan had planned a "date night" with Savannah, Reid could extrapolate that this would not be a good time to announce that he was just as glad that they had a case, because he, himself, had had no plans for the evening.

JJ and Kate also showed signs of stress when they came into the room, despite the fact that they were sharing a box of saltines with one another and Kate was telling JJ about the Lamaze class she and her husband were taking. "I hope we get back in time for the first class," Kate was saying. "Chris is extremely supportive, but he will not enjoy being the only man there without his pregnant partner. I suggested he could take Meg as a backup, but he said he really didn't want people thinking he had knocked up a thirteen-year-old. Which, on second thought, seems reasonable." Based on her relatively light tone, Reid surmised that the tension she was feeling was mostly the typical "Oh, darn, we have to go on a case" type, coupled with the strain of being seven months pregnant. JJ's laughter at Kate seemed a tad forced, however, and she, of course, didn't have the excuse of being pregnant. Reid determined to keep an extra eye on JJ over the next few days and make sure nothing unusual was going on with her.

David Rossi and Aaron Hotchner were the two hardest team members for Reid to analyze. Rossi tended to cover his emotions with his dry, sardonic wit, while Hotch's stoicism was famous throughout the FBI and beyond. Reid wasn't getting any information from Hotch's expression when he sat at the table, so he turned his scrutiny to Rossi. He thought he was being fairly casual in his examination, but two seconds after he sat down Rossi looked at him and asked, "Can I help you?" His tone made it obvious that Reid's gaze had been too intense, and the young genius hurriedly turned his attention to the file Garcia had just laid in front of him in deference to his preference for paper copies over electronic ones.

"And then there's Garcia," Reid thought to himself as the woman in question strode to the front of the room to begin the briefing. She was the opposite of Hotch as far as emotions were concerned; a five-year-old could interpret her micro expressions. Garcia didn't just wear her heart on her sleeve; her heart was her entire outfit. A glance at her face let him know that this case, at least so far, did not involve any blood or gore. Her expression was concerned but not sickened, and she didn't seem to be attempting to avoid any of the information she was about to present.

"Lake Lure, North Carolina, my intrepid crime fighters," the lady in question announced, pulling up a map on the big screen . "Teeny, tiny, middle of nowhere, population slightly more than 1000."

"1068 in the 2010 census," Reid interjected off-handedly, looking through the file in front of him.

"What he said," Garcia continued. "Unfortunately, the population seems to be down by one. Elizabeth Carregan, age 16." She clicked her laptop and a photograph appeared on the screen. "Beth was vacationing with her parents and her older sister, Isabella. They all went to bed around eleven o'clock last night. When Isabella got up at seven she noticed that her sister was missing from the other bed in their hotel room, but wasn't terribly concerned since Beth often got up early and went down to the lobby so she could read without waking her sister. However, when she went to join their parents for breakfast at eight, Beth was nowhere to be found. They searched around themselves for a couple of hours and then called the local police."

"They're already calling us in?" Morgan asked. "That's pretty quick for a missing teenager. What makes them think she's not a runaway?"

"I knew you would ask that, as I asked the same thing myself," replied Garcia. "And the answer is two-fold. First, the parents insist that Beth would, never, ever, do something as impetuous as run away."

Rossi interpolated, "Parents always say that."

"True, mon Capitan," the technical analysist agreed, "but you are not yet aware of point number two. Tiny little Lake Lure has had no fewer than five missing persons over the past two years. Miss Carregan makes number six."

Morgan sighed deeply. "I retract my earlier statement," he said. "They aren't calling us in too early."

"Up until now all of the missing people have been transients and other low risk victims," Hotch explained. "The assumption around town was that they had simply wandered away to find somewhere more profitable to panhandle. Some of them weren't even reported as missing until the local sheriff started asking around after the last person disappeared."

Rossi had been looking through the file on his tablet. "That would have been Frederick Ring?"

"Right," Garcia picked back up her presentation. "He was a life guard at the beach on the lake. It was nearing the end of the season, and at first the consensus was that he had simply gone back to college early."

"Do we know he didn't?" Kate asked.

"He didn't pick up his last paycheck, and he didn't show up back on campus," Garcia explained.

JJ was scrolling through her screen. "I don't see any explanation as to why they didn't call us then," she commented.

"That's because we didn't get one," Hotch said. "I didn't want to get into a lengthy argument with the sheriff over the phone. We'll find out what's going on when we get there. Wheels up in 30. And pack warm; it's supposed to snow tonight in North Carolina."

"This just keeps getting better and better," Morgan grumbled as he headed out the door.

Reid knew that Morgan actually loved the snow; he was just upset about his missed date. Reid, on the other hand, completely agreed with the sentiment. It wouldn't take a profiler to evaluate his expressions. Having grown up in Nevada, he purely hated the snow.

 **AN: I only got two reviews for the first chapter of this story, which hasn't given me a lot of incentive to continue. If I don't get some more interest after this chapter, I'll probably bag it. The action is going to pick up, I promise.**


	3. Never Find a Guy as Great

The flight to North Carolina was anything but pleasant. As the plane took off a bolt of lightning lit up the darkening sky, followed closely by a peal of thunder booming loudly enough to be heard over the racing engines. "Thunder in the winter," Kate commented. "Doesn't that mean it's supposed to snow within nine days?"

"Actually, that's an old wives' tale," Reid replied. "There is actually very little specific correlation between thunderstorms and snow, except for the fact that precipitation tends to lead to more precipitation."

"I don't think you have to worry about nine days anyway," Rossi commented wryly. "Look out the window."

Indeed, in the few minutes they had been flying south, the rain had changed into a mixture of snow and sleet. The plane shuddered and dropped suddenly as they flew through a downdraft. JJ moaned and rushed toward the on-board bathroom at the rear of the plane, while the voice of the pilot came over the intercom: "I suggest you all stay seated, folks. It's going to be pretty rough all the way into Asheville."

"Asheville?'' Morgan asked.

"The nearest airport to Lake Lure," Hotch informed them. "The Charlotte field office will have a couple of SUVs waiting for us when we get there. It's only a thirty mile drive."

"Twenty-nine point two one miles, actually," Reid stated automatically. Then, when everyone gave him THAT look, he changed the subject. "I'm going to check on JJ. She's not usually a bad flier." He got up and made his way toward the back of the plane, grabbing the back of the seats to steady himself as the plane dipped again.

Kate, who had spent several months experiencing morning sickness, was well aware how little a person wants attention on him or herself when feeling ill, so she changed the subject again. "So, Hotch, you said that there have been five other missing people over the past couple of years? Do we have any more information on them? I didn't see anything in the file."

"Garcia was going to try and get us the reports on them," Hotch answered. "I don't know what the deal is with the Lake Lure police, but they provided us very little information. Let's see what she's found." He set a laptop on the table in front of him and hit the on switch. A few moments later the back of Garcia's head appeared on the screen. She seemed to be looking at a different computer on the other side of the room from the one they were seeing.

"Greetings and salutations, intrepid crime fighters," she said, spinning around to face them. "Oh, my," she continued. "Either someone has placed your laptop on the back of a bucking bronco, or your plane flight is lacking in its usual smoothness."

Reid and JJ had returned to the group, JJ looking slightly paler than usual. "I'll say it is," she proclaimed, dropping down into the seat beside Rossi. "I haven't had a plane ride bother me like that since I was pregnant with Henry. Must have been something I ate."

"Awwww, poor baby," Garcia cooed. "Somebody get her some hot tea."

"That might not be the best suggestion," Morgan pointed out as the plane jolted again. "Burning liquid across her stomach would probably not make her feel better."

Another bump sent Reid sprawling across Hotch and Kate's laps, knocking into the computer as he went. "All right, I don't think we're going to get anything done in this situation," assessed Hotch, helping an embarrassed Reid into an empty seat and straightening Garcia's screen. "It's only an hour-long flight anyway. Everyone just try and keep your minds occupied for a few more minutes and we'll be there. Garcia, we'll contact you when we're safe at the Lake Lure police station."

"Make sure you do," she admonished. "I will be worried about my babies driving on slick mountain roads."

Morgan scoffed. "Nothing to worry about, Mama. I learned to drive on the streets of Chicago. No way the snow in North Carolina could stand up against the drifts I had to drive through on the way to school every day."

"Uphill. Both ways," Rossi added.

Reid looked confused. "How could it be uphill both ways?" he asked. "Unless . . . did you take a different route coming and going, Morgan? But even then, there might have been some portions that were uphill, but it would have been physically impossible for the road to be completely uphill in both directions. . . ."

For a second everyone just looked at Reid, and Morgan punched his arm lightly. He stopped rambling long enough to ask, "What?"

It was dark. And cold. Her hands were cuffed to the arms of the hard-backed chair on which she sat, and she was fairly certain that she wasn't going to be able to get them loose, given that she'd been trying since she woke up. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there, but it was long enough that her muscles were aching and her fingers were numb. The piercing headache she'd awoken with had diminished to a dull throb at the base of her skull.

At first she had screamed and pulled madly at her wrist bindings, but she had worn herself out over time. Plus, having received no response whatsoever, she figured the screaming wasn't going to do her much good. "Okay, Beth," she said aloud to herself, taking comfort in the steady sound of her own voice, "let's think through everything that's happened and figure out exactly what's going on here."

She and her sister Isabella had gone to their room in the hotel at 11 o'clock the night before. "At least I assume it was last night," Beth pondered. For all she knew, she'd been unconscious for days, but it didn't feel like it had been that long. "Isabella, of course, was on the phone with Danny for at least two hours. It might have been longer, but I fell asleep around midnight, when I finished reading _The Merchant of Venice_. I woke up at 6:30 and went downstairs to get another book out of the bag I left in the car. Oh, man, I didn't even get dressed first." Beth suddenly realized she was still wearing the sweat pants and the tank top she had slept in the night before. The coat she had thrown on top was missing though, so it was no wonder that she was freezing. She wiggled her toes and decided that she was still wearing the tennis shoes she had pulled on without socks, fully intending to run downstairs, grab a book, and climb right back into the warm bed until it was time to get dressed and meet her parents for breakfast.

"Mom and Dad," Beth exclaimed. "They will have missed me by now. Heck, even Isabella has probably noticed I'm gone – although she's probably happy about it. Anyway, they'll be looking for me. Mom won't be much use - she'll just get hysterical and yell a lot – but Dad will get something done. He'll go to the police and organize a search party. He's probably on the way here right now."

"Perfect!"

Beth screamed as she realized that there was someone else in the room with her, a male someone from the voice. "Who's there?" she asked, straining to see through the darkness, twisting her head around to ascertain if a door had possibly opened behind her without her realizing it. No, she decided, the man must have been in the room the entire time. The thought completely creeped her out. "Who are you?" she asked again. "Are you a prisoner too? Don't worry; I'm sure my dad will have someone here to rescue us any minute."

"No, he won't," the voice stated very matter-of-factly. "No one is coming to rescue you. But it's absolutely perfect that you think he will."

"Why perfect? How can you be so sure he won't?" Beth asked hotly.

"It's perfect because you, of course, think you'll never find a guy as great as your dad. And I know you're wrong because, my dear, you're the seventeenth person I've abducted, and no one has ever come to rescue any of them."

 **AN: Does it work to divide the chapters up between the team and the Unsub like that? Or should they have separate chapters? Should I use a different type for the parts with the Unsub, or it is clear the way it is?**


	4. Willing to stand up no matter what

By the time they landed in Asheville it was not only snowing, it had grown dark. They were relieved to see two black SUVs waiting for them, one for Morgan to drive, the other for Hotch. They split themselves up quickly, not wanting to linger in the freezing weather any longer than necessary. Rossi, Kate and JJ went with Hotch, while Reid followed Morgan to the second vehicle. To their surprise, there was already a man sitting in the front passenger's seat, poring over some papers by the dome light. Morgan and Reid exchanged a startled glance, but then climbed into the relative warmth of the car before saying anything. The man inside looked up from his papers without any sense of bewilderment or alarm. He was fairly short, 5'9" or so, with a slight but muscular build. His olive skin and a slight slant to his eyes indicated Asian ancestry, but his accent was pure North Carolina Southern.

"I presume you're the BAU, or at least part of them" he said easily, shuffling the papers into a neat stack on his lap. "I'm Sam Lahr, the police chief for Lake Lure. I hope you don't mind me tagging along. The agents from the field office in Charlotte wanted to get back before the roads got too bad, so I offered to drive one of the SUVs out here and let them ride back together. It's always nice to have a few minutes to myself to get paperwork done, and I figured it would give us an opportunity to get to know one another outside of the office before you started working the case."

"Derek Morgan, Dr. Spencer Reid," Morgan answered, pointing to himself and then to the backseat where Reid had scrambled in. "You want me to drive?"

Lahr gave a single nod. "I hate driving in snow. Always have. You mind?"

"Not at all. I'm from Chicago." Lahr already had the engine running, so all Morgan had to do was adjust the seat and mirrors before fastening his seatbelt and putting the car in gear. He watched the mirrors to make sure Hotch was ready to follow him before starting forward.

"Take a right out of the parking lot," Lahr instructed. "Follow the signs for 26 East, then take the Bat Cave exit. If you can see it," he added, noticing just how far down visibility had fallen with the coming of night. "If you can't, I'll tell you when to turn."

"The Bat Cave?" Morgan asked. "Seriously? You have an exit named for Batman's hideout?"

"Actually, the town of Bat Cave was named for the cave in Bluerock Mountain which is home to a wide variety of webbed Chiroptera," Reid informed them. "The name actually predates the DC comic, where Batman first appeared in 1940."

Sam Lahr turned around to take a closer look at Reid. "1939," he said dryly, interrupting Reid's tirade.

"Excuse me?"

"The first Batman comic book was in 1939, but he appeared in _Detective Comics_ in May of 1939."

Reid stared at the other man for a moment, his eyes widening, then smiled broadly. "I did not know that," he admitted.

Laughter bubbled out of Morgan like steam escaping a tea kettle. Reid turned quizzical eyes on him. "What's so funny?"

It took Morgan a couple of deep breaths before he could answer. "First of all, I have never heard you admit to not knowing something."

"I have too . . . "

Morgan waved him off. "Secondly, I am apparently stuck in a car with two of the biggest nerds to ever walk the face of the planet. No offense, Chief Lahr."

"None taken." The policeman seemed amused by the exchange. "I'm actually quite proud of my nerd status."

"This one," Morgan pointed a thumb toward the back seat, "has an IQ of 187."

"Oh, he's got me beat then," Lahr confessed. "I'm only 165. But I do have an eidetic memory . . . you'd probably call it a photographic memory, although that's not quite accurate."

"God help me," Morgan moaned. "It's bad enough that there are two of you, but I drew the short straw in having to drive you through the worst snow storm of the year to Nowheresville, North Carolina. Again, no offense."

"Again none taken. Lake Lure is slightly south of the middle of nowhere."

"Maybe you're not offended," Reid spoke up, "but I am. What do you mean, 'Bad enough that there's two' of us?"

At that moment they were driving across a bridge, and it took all of Morgan's attention to keep them from sliding on the icy surface. By the time they reached the other side, Reid and Lahr were happily discussing the differences between an eidetic and a photographic memory, which apparently _everyone_ got wrong, and Morgan chose to keep his ears closed and his mind on the road for the rest of the journey.

Just as they passed a sign stating, "Welcome to Lake Lure," Chief Lahr turned away from Reid and said to Morgan, "There's an all-night diner up there on the left. Pull in there. I need to talk to your team before we get to the station."

Morgan nodded tersely and turned into the parking lot, Hotch pulling in behind him. The lot was virtually empty, with only a couple of cars sitting at the far end, completely covered in white. The team followed Lahr into the dining area, where the new snowfall on their shoulders steamed slightly in the warmth. He led them to a booth large enough to seat six. As they all slid in, he grabbed a chair from a nearby table. Lahr started to seat himself on the chair, but then wordlessly gave it over to Kate who couldn't easily fit her pregnant belly into the booth. The four team members who had been in the other SUV gazed at him in puzzlement, but waited patiently for him to explain who he was and why they were in a diner instead of the police station.

"This is Police Chief Sam Lahr," Morgan introduced him. "SSA Hotchner, Rossi, Jareau, and Callahan." Lahr shook each of their hands in turn, stretching across the table to reach them.

"It's late, and I'm sure you'd like to get to work, so I'll get right to the point," Lahr stated. "I imagine you all wondered why I waited until there were six missing people before I called you."

"It had crossed our minds," Rossi commented, his tone indicating it had done a lot more than just crossing them.

"I imagine you're thinking I'm a real idiot, and I don't blame you," Lahr continued. "The truth of the matter is, I just became police chief here in Lake Lure two months ago. Before that I was on the force over in Charlotte. The man who was the chief was a good man, don't get me wrong, but he's suffering from early onset Alzheimer's. Near as I can tell, things have been sliding downhill around here for a good long while, and most people just didn't notice. The few who did, they've been so busy covering for the poor man, they haven't been doing a very good job of policing. Lake Lure is a tiny little town, as I'm sure you know, but during the summer when the tourists arrive it can swell to over 20,000 people. There are only five police officers, including the chief. His two detectives sort of realized what was happening, and instead of letting people know or convincing the chief to just retire quietly, they've been trying to pick up the slack for his mistakes. Frankly, it's a real mess."

"Hence your desire to meet here instead of at the station," Hotch surmised.

"Exactly. I'm trying to let the two of them down easy. David and Shawnda, they're decent enough officers, but neither one is ready to be acting chief. And it wasn't just that they were having to do Chief Moss's work. The man was making some serious errors, a lot of which they didn't even know about. He would take down reports and then forget he'd ever gotten them. Bulletins sent in from the FBI or from other jurisdictions would get filed or even thrown away without getting passed on to the others. He even gave his officers and others in the community specific incorrect information. I guess they would ask him questions that confused him, so he would just say what he thought they wanted to hear, or maybe he believed he was telling them the truth. He told one woman that her missing husband had contacted the police station and told them he was fine, that he just needed some time to himself. Everyone believed him; why wouldn't they? But now that I've started looking into things more carefully, I don't think it ever happened."

As the chief fell silent, Hotch started to pose a question. "Chief Lahr, I hate to ask you this, but have you considered the possibility . . . ?"

"That Chief Moss was the villain in all this? Of course I have. How could I not? You've been here ten minutes and you're already considering it. But I've talked to his doctors, and he's not faking the dementia. And even then, if these were the only cases he's screwed up, I'd still be suspicious. But he screwed up pretty much everything he touched in the past year. No, it's not all part of some master plot. It's just a mess."

Kate felt sorry for the man. "How did it become your mess?" She asked gently. "You said you were in Charlotte until a couple of months ago. Are you from Lake Lure?"

Lahr shook his head. "No, I'm a complete outsider, and believe you me, that isn't making any of this any easier. It's bad enough that I'm coming into a station and taking over from the beloved old chief. Add in that I'm now besmirching his good name, and I've barely avoided a lynching."

"Then how?" JJ repeated.

"My sister is Chief Moss's preacher. Methodist Church, they change pastors around on a regular basis. She came in about a year ago. At first she couldn't figure out what it was about the man that wasn't quite right. Once she was sure, she started trying to get him to leave office, but he was in denial. She asked me to come in and talk to him, blue to blue. She had some pretty specific information on cases he had screwed up, things which had affected other members of her congregation. It's not like nobody in town noticed; they just didn't know what to do, or exactly how bad things were.

"In the end, I think Moss was relieved. I approached him head on; no one else had done that before. I didn't let him evade or come up with excuses. And once I laid everything out for him, showed him just how badly things were really going for him, he agreed to step down. But he had one condition. He wanted me to take over. He said I was the only person he trusted to clean up the mess he'd made. I felt bad for him, plus someone really did need to come in and untangle the chaos. So I agreed."

"And the missing persons?" Rossi prompted.

"Didn't know anything about them until today," Lahr sighed. "As soon as those parents reported that their daughter had disappeared, Officer Phelps came into my office and told me there had been others. He's only been on the job a year or so, and he didn't want to rock the boat, but he's pretty smart and he'd noticed what was going on. I'm going to assign him exclusively to you while you're here. He has more information on the missing people than anyone else, because he's been working on it under the table for a while now."

"And your other officers?" Morgan inquired. "What about them?"

"They're good people. It's just . . ." Lahr didn't seem to know how to go on. "Look, you do what you have to do. Finding that girl is more important than soothing hurt feelings. They're not happy that I'm here; they're sure not happy I've called you in. This whole thing is going to rip the department apart anyway, I can tell. Just do what you have to do."

Hotch pushed away the cup of coffee sitting in front of him. Somehow during Lahr's explanation full, steaming cups had appeared before all of the team, coffee for most of them, tea for Kate and, at her request, JJ. A small part of Hotch's brain realized that he hadn't even noticed the man who had served them, but the information was unimportant at the moment. "Let's get to work," he instructed the group. "Morgan, Kate and JJ, you go to the hotel where the girl was staying. Are her parents there now?" he asked Lahr.

The chief nodded. "The Lake Lure Inn. I've booked rooms for you there as well. It's probably nicer than you're used to, and if this were the season you'd never get a room, but in the winter it's pretty quiet. The owner, Nancy Sharp, can give you some information on a couple of the other missing people as well."

"We'll take everyone's bags," Morgan offered. "Save everyone having to check in later."

Hotch agreed. "The rest of us will head to the police station and start setting up. Come there when you're finished at the hotel. Let's go."

As they headed out the door, the busboy started picking up the cups and napkins from the table, filing away everything he'd heard. He didn't need an FBI agent, but the information could prove useful nevertheless.

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 **AN: I discovered that the line breaks I had been putting in to previous chapters didn't actually show up when I posted. I'm trying the CMCM thing now.**


	5. I carried a watermelon

Kate eyed the snow-covered steps leading up to the pillared porch of the Lake Lure Inn. She huffed out a deep breath before voicing her concerns. "I am never going to live down how completely un-feminist this sounds, but Morgan, could you lend me a hand? I don't think I can handle carrying my go-bag and this watermelon I have in front of me without wiping out on the ice."

Morgan grinned. He was a gentleman, of course, but he couldn't resist a little needling. "Of course, m'lady. Would you prefer me to carry your bag, or you?" He made as if to sweep her off her feet.

Kate slapped his hand away. "The bag, moron. Pregnant belly or no, you're not carrying me anywhere unless I am in active labor."

"Watch it, Morgan," JJ advised. "She does still carry a gun."

"Duly noted." Morgan added Kate's bag to the four he was already carrying. JJ took the other two, and the three of them made their way gingerly up the stairs. Fortunately someone had spread salt on the risers, so they were less treacherous than they might have been. They gained the front doorway without incident. The right of the double doors was pushed open from the inside as they arrived, allowing them to enter without having to shift things around. Once inside, Morgan and JJ dropped their bags onto the hardwood floor, apologizing to the woman who had opened the door for the wet puddle spreading around them.

"Not a problem," she proclaimed, helping Kate off with her coat. "There's enough wax on these floors to repel the lake itself if necessary. Are you the FBI folks?"

"We are," JJ affirmed, sliding off her own coat and unwrapping the plaid scarf from around her neck. "I'm Jennifer Jareau, and these are Agents Morgan and Callahan."

"Nancy Sharp," the woman introduced herself, taking all their wraps and throwing them onto a rocking chair before shaking hands all around. "I'm the proprietor of this little inn. Why don't I get you checked into your rooms, and then we can talk. She led them to a wooden counter where a modern computer setup belied the authenticity of the rest of the lobby. "Chief Lahr said you'd be okay sharing rooms. We have plenty empty this time of year, but I only have the heat on in the west wing. I figured you'd rather double up and be warm . . . though it looks like you may be tripling up," she commented, eyeing Kate's burgeoning stomach.

"Yeah, the watermelon and I will be bunking together," Kate acknowledged with a laugh.

"And me," JJ added. "No, doubling up is fine. We'll go up to the rooms and then meet you back down here in ten minutes, if that's okay."

"Fine by me," Nancy agreed. "We can meet in my office, if you're worried about privacy, or out here by the fireplace if you're more worried about warmth."

Morgan took the three sets of keys she handed him – actual keys, he noted, not key cards – as he answered. "Here will be fine. And will you let the Carrigans know we're here?"

"I will," affirmed Nancy, "but you may want to hold off on that. I have some information I want to give you that I'm not sure you're going to be wanting them to hear."

Intrigued, Morgan nodded. "All right then. We'll be back down in a few minutes."

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Beth had been alone in the dark for what seemed to her to be a very long time. The man had unlocked her wrists from the chair before he left, telling her he had to go to work. She'd tried to hit him, tried to jump up and run away, but her muscles were stiff from sitting so long, and he had just laughed at her when she tried. "Feisty," he said. "Of course. I like that. You are just perfect." And then he was out of her reach, across the room and opening a door. Light blazed through, blinding her after the darkness.

"Wait!" she had cried desperately. "What's your name?"

"You can call me Johnny," he had said before plunging her back into the dark as he closed the door behind him. She heard a snick and a click as he turned at least two locks from the other side. Nevertheless she had flung herself across the room and tried the unmoving knob, then pounded frantically on the thick wood, begging Johnny to return.

Now, what she was sure was hours later, Beth felt she knew the room in which she was locked as intimately as her own bedroom, even though she still hadn't seen it. She had felt her way carefully around the walls, starting at the door and working her way clockwise. She had experienced a surge of hope when she felt a switch plate, then groaned when flicking the switch caused no change. He must have removed the lightbulb or otherwise deactivated the light. There was one area on the wall opposite the door where she felt sure there had once been a window, because when she placed her hand against the plaster there was a spot that was colder than the surrounding wall, but it was plastered over and her scrambling fingernails couldn't find any purchase. The rest of the walls were unremarkable. By walking heel-to-toe from one side of the room to the other, she estimated it to be eight feet square. Except for the chair to which she'd been cuffed the room was devoid of furniture. She briefly contemplated using the seat to hit Johnny over the head when he returned, but it was bolted to the floor, the bolts flush into the floor. She had tried rocking the chair in an attempt to crack it loose from its base, or at least to break one of the arms off to use as a weapon, but it was well-crafted and not prone to breakage. She had pushed and pulled until her arms ached without feeling any give at all.

Abruptly she stopped fighting the chair. Her head went up and instinctively turned toward the door. Although she had not consciously heard a sound, something told her Johnny was back in the building. She waited, barely breathing, until the door creaked slowly open.

The second she sensed movement Beth jumped to her feet and turned her head away to avoid being blinded again. Even looking in the other direction was not sufficient to keep her from blinking and squinting in the sudden brightness. Johnny stood in the doorway long enough for her eyes to adjust, and she turned to face him, refusing to cower even though she was terrified. Backlit though he was, there was something about his shape that seemed vaguely familiar. "What do you want?" she demanded, pleased that her voice didn't shake.

The tone was softer than she'd expected. He didn't sound angry or threatening, the way she had assumed it would. Instead, he was almost soothing. "Why, you, Baby. What else could I possibly want? I want you. You and me, we're gonna dance."

Somehow the calming voice was more frightening than if he'd yelled.

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Ten minutes after they'd gone upstairs, Morgan, Kate and JJ were seated on one side on the roaring fireplace in the lobby of the inn, facing Nancy Sharp. She'd started off sitting in the cane-bottomed rocking chair from which they'd removed their coats, but after a few minutes of false starts she'd decided she'd be more comfortable standing while she addressed the agents. The three of them remained still, letting her get to it in her own time. The woman facing them now was entirely different from the confident, talkative proprietress who had greeted them at the door.

Finally she gulped in a deep breath and started. "Here's the thing," she said, and suddenly realized it was easier now that she was talking, "I think there have been more than the six abductions that the police are owning up to."

The agents exchanged a glance before JJ spoke carefully. "How many more?"

"A lot more," Nancy replied. "Maybe as many as ten."

JJ kept with the questioning since Nancy seemed comfortable enough talking to her. "What makes you think so?"

"My son, Adam, goes to Heritage Hall. It's a private high school in Hendersonville. Kids come from all over the area." She stopped again and eyed them warily, as if expecting them to deny her statements of fact.

"Okay," JJ prompted. "Heritage Hall. What about it?"

Nancy found her courage again. "There've been rumors. For years. One kid lost an uncle. Another knew this homeless guy that just disappeared one day."

Morgan cleared his throat. "Ms. Sharp, people do disappear for various reasons."

"I know," Nancy declared. "I know, and most of the rumors are the 'I knew a guy who knew a guy' sort. Maybe it's nothing." She stopped herself from pacing and turned to face them directly. "But maybe it's something. And if it is, then there are a LOT of missing people in the four or five counties around here. Look, I know that Chief Moss kinda let things go there at the end. And all of these kids are from little towns, if they're from towns at all. Places that make Lake Lure look like a bustling metropolis. Isn't it at least possible?"

"Yes, it is possible," Kate confirmed. "And if it's true, we have an even bigger mess on our hands than we thought."

"Agreed," said Morgan, pulling out his phone and punching a number. "Baby Girl, I need you to do me a favor."

Penelope Garcia's voice breathed seductively over the speaker. "Oh, my shining Apollo, I have been researching the inn where Hotch says you are staying, and I am just praying that you are asking me to join you by a blazing fire, perhaps lying on a bearskin rug sipping red wine and wearing . . . "

Morgan hastily interrupted. "You're on speaker, Penelope."

"Why do you constantly give me a licentious opening line and then put me on speakerphone?" Garcia pouted.

"All I asked for is a favor," Morgan protested. "A WORK favor. I need you to find any missing person reports in the surrounding counties for the past five years."

"More," Nancy interjected.

"Make that ten," Morgan amended.

"Not only do you cut short my fantasies, you give me such an easy assignment to boot," Garcia complained. "I will have you a report before you finish thinking through my previous scenario to its logical end. Garcia out." The phone went dead.

"She's interesting," Nancy commented. "That must be your girlfriend?"

"You have no idea," agreed Kate. "And he's dating someone else. Could you find us the Carrigans now?"


	6. Spaghetti arms

By the time they finished interviewing the Carrigans and got to the police station it was nearly midnight. Everyone was tired, but they knew if they didn't find Beth in the first twenty-four hours the chances of finding her alive would be seriously compromised. A helpful officer at the front desk led them to a conference room in the back of the tiny station. "We probably could have found it ourselves," Kate whispered to JJ as they passed the only two desks in the main office. "My apartment is bigger than this police station."

Hotch was on his phone at the near end of the conference room, while Rossi pulled papers off a fax machine that looked like it might have been new in the 1980's. Reid was standing at the far end of the room having a conversation with Garcia via a laptop sitting open on the eight-foot folding table which took up most of the room. As Morgan, JJ and Kate entered, Hotch hit the "end" button on his phone and turned to face them. "We're receiving reports of missing people from all over the region," he told them. "Reid, add Matthew Aberdeen, age 47. Rossi should be getting a picture any minute now."

"Coming through now," Rossi acknowledged, taking the picture off the fax machine and passing it to Morgan to hand to Reid, the room not allowing enough space for him to walk around the table. Reid took it and added it to the other pictures he had posted on the board which took up the whole far wall.

"Matthew Aberdeen," Garcia said, her fingers apparently flying on a keyboard they couldn't see. "Reported as possibly missing from Rutherfordton in May of 2013."

"Possibly missing?" Kate asked.

"Oh. Hello my burgeoning mama bear. I didn't know you were there."

Morgan stepped forward and swung the laptop around so the camera would take in the majority of the room. "We're all here now, Mama."

"Oh, good. That's always better. Anyway, Matthew was reported as missing by a neighbor after his dog was found wandering the countryside. Matthew himself was something of a recluse who rarely left his cabin in the woods. The local PD checked it out, saw no signs of foul play, and concluded that Matthew had most likely simply decided to move on. However, the neighbor, a Mr. Jeremy Teetor, insisted that Matthew would never have left Hookah behind, so they kept the file open."

"Hookah?" JJ inquired.

"The dog," Garcia affirmed. "An Australian shepherd/pit bull mix."

"Named his dog after drug paraphernalia," Rossi commented dryly. "Obviously a stable, upstanding citizen."

By this time Reid had finished affixing the man's picture to the board, which was covered with photographs of men and women of various ages. He then pushed a red pin into a map among a cluster of red and blue pins.

"Garcia, keep digging," Hotch instructed. "Everyone else, have a seat. Let's focus on what we have for now." He indicated the cluttered board. "Twenty-one people missing in this general area over the last ten years. Both men and women, the youngest being Beth Carregan, the oldest being 78 year old Martin "Marty" Davis."

"No children?" JJ asked.

"Not that we've been able to find," Hotch acknowledged, "although Garcia is still looking. There have been some missing children, of course, but they have all been accounted for, either alive or dead. Since none of the adult bodies have been found, we're discounting the children from the profile for now."

"They're all white," Morgan noted, "but whether that's a matter of geography or preference is anyone's guess."

"Western North Carolina is predominately white," Reid added. "Seventy-eight percent at the last census. Still, for there to be zero minority victims in a pool of this size is statistically significant."

"Reid, what does the geography tell us?" Hotch wanted to know.

Although he had sat down when Hotch asked them to, Reid stood up again so he could reference the map while addressing the group. "Doing a geographic profile based on the reported missing people puts Lake Lure dead center of the Unsub's comfort zone. He showed where the small town lay amidst the cluster of pins. "There are a few outliers, which may or may not be attributable to our Unsub, but most of the reports come from within a thirty mile radius of this town."

"More than twenty people missing from a thirty mile zone and nobody noticed," JJ observed sadly.

Rossi said, "Most of them were like Matthew Aberdeen, people on the outskirts of society. Even if someone reported them missing, there wasn't anyone invested enough to follow up."

"That's so sad," remarked Kate.

"Well, we're following up now," Hotch said with his usual no-nonsense tone. "It's too late to do much more tonight. Let's go to the inn and get some sleep. In the morning we'll need to talk to as many witnesses to these abductions as we can find and see if we can get a handle on victimology. Why did the Unsub pick these people at this time?"

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Beth had thought that when Johnny said he wanted to dance with her, he was speaking metaphorically. Now she knew otherwise. After his pronouncement, he had blindfolded her and put handcuffs around her wrists before leading her out of the room where she'd been held. Beth noticed that he was gentle with her, fastening the handcuffs almost loosely enough for her to pull them off, and leading her carefully, making sure she didn't trip or bump into anything. The way had been circuitous, including climbs both up and down stairs, leading Beth to conclude that while they were in a fairly large building, Johnny was making the route much more confusing than necessary. Finally he had led her through what felt like a small closet and pushed her ahead of him up what seemed more like a wooden ladder than a real staircase. Stepping out at the top, Beth froze until Johnny came up behind her. She heard a creaking and a thud, followed by the snick of a lock closing. Johnny took her arm and led her forward a few more feet, and then removed the blindfold and handcuffs. She looked around while rubbing her wrists, surreptitiously hunting for any exits, windows, or even a telephone. There were none that she could see. The way they can come in was through a hole in the floor, but Johnny had pulled up the folding ladder behind them and padlocked the wooden covering. Instead of windows, one wall was covered in mirrors. Beth recognized that they were in a dance studio, and Johnny's desire to "dance with" her came back. He really wanted to dance.

"Do you like it?" he asked eagerly, and she realized he cared about her answer. Afraid to anger him, she replied in the affirmative.

"It's . . . very nice."

"You recognize it, don't you?"

Bewildered, Beth looked more closely. As far as she could tell, it was just a plain dance studio. She had seen similar ones on TV and in the movies, but she had never taken dance lessons, and there was nothing in the room to indicate any particular place she'd ever seen. "What should I say?" she asked herself. "If I say I do recognize it, he might ask for more details. But if I say I don't, it might piss him off."

"I'm not sure," she hedged. "It looks familiar."

For a moment Johnny stared at her with a hurt expression, biting his lower lip, and Beth worried that she had said the wrong thing. She was about to say something different, anything different, when his face cleared, and he smiled at her. "Of course you don't. At this point, you've never been here before."

Beth forced herself to smile back. "Okay," she said uncertainly.

"Time to dance, Baby." Johnny reached out his arms to her. At first Beth's own arms dangled by her sides, but he took her hands in his, placing one on his shoulder and holding the other in the air. Wrapping his free arm around her, he began to instruct her in the dance. "Keep your arms tight," he told her. "No spaghetti arms."

Beth took a good look at Johnny's face for the first time and realized that she did know him, at least peripherally. "He's the busboy from the diner," she thought, but didn't know what good that knowledge would do her. "Unless I escape," she told herself determinedly. "Then I'll be able to tell the police who to arrest." And she began to move her body in the ways Johnny demanded, determined to survive until someone found her or until she made good on her hope for escape.

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 **AN: Have you started to figure out what his obsession is yet? The title of every chapter is a very subtle clue, but it got fairly obvious in this chapter. If you still don't know, it may not be something you know about. Don't worry – Reid doesn't know about it either.**


	7. Nobody puts Baby in a corner

The next morning the snow had stopped, although the clouds still glowered ominously low in the sky. Over an early breakfast eaten once again at the Silver Steel Diner, the only restaurant open in Lake Lure besides McDonalds, Hotch had determined that, in order to interview as many witnesses as quickly as possible, it made sense for the team to split up. The original plan was for him and Rossi to head toward one end of the Unsub's abduction zone while JJ and Morgan headed toward the other, leaving Reid and Kate to set up in the Lake Lure PD and interview nearby witnesses while simultaneously continuing to work on the geographic profile and compile any new data as it came in. However, when JJ made her second trip to the restroom during the meal, Kate volunteered to ride out with Morgan. "My morning sickness is pretty much done with," she commented, "but poor JJ still doesn't seem to be feeling her best." Had they not been intent on a case, the group of profilers probably would have clued in right then. Instead, they simply went their separate ways, leaving Reid to wait for JJ and walk with her the block and a half to the police station.

Upon their arrival, JJ made one more dash to the women's bathroom, while Reid went on into the conference room alone. He was surprised to find that the room was not empty, as he had expected. Instead, there was an older man sitting at the conference table. More surprising, and upsetting, was the fact that the man had taken the pictures and identifying information off of the board and was sorting it out on the table in front of him.

"What are you doing?" Reid exclaimed, leaping forward and starting to scoop the pictures and papers into a pile. "Those are official police business. You can't be in here."

The man stood up abruptly, shoving his chair back so hard it left a dent in the plaster wall behind him. He was slightly shorter than Reid, but outweighed him by a good deal. Glowering at the young agent, the man grabbed at the paperwork still on the table without taking his eyes off of Reid. "I don't know who you are or what you think you're doing here," he growled, "but this is my department, and I decide what goes up on our walls."

"Your department?" Reid asked, nonplussed. He put the papers he'd gathered back on the table, but kept a cautious hand on them. The first rule of being an FBI profiler was that they did not go where they weren't wanted. But the Chief of Police had invited them in. If this man was part of the department, why didn't he know that? "Look, I don't want to cause any trouble. Chief Lahr asked us to be here. I'm with the BAU." When the man tensed even further, Reid tried again. "The FBI? We're consulting on a case."

For a second Reid thought the older man might throw a punch at him. "Who the hell is Chief Lahr? I'm the chief here!" he proclaimed.

Suddenly Reid understood. This must be Chief Moss, the former police chief. His Alzheimer's must have caused him to forget that he was no longer in charge of the Lake Lure police station. As far as he was concerned, Reid and the BAU were interlopers, arriving unexpectedly and uninvited and setting up shop in his conference room.

Of all the members of the BAU, Reid had the most experience dealing with individuals who had a tenuous hold on reality. Many times he had talked his schizophrenic mother down from a crisis invented in her own mind. Automatically he slumped a little and drew his shoulders in, making himself appear smaller and less threatening. His voice lowered in both intensity and volume, and he put an encouraging smile on his face. "Chief Moss," he said, "I am so sorry. I didn't realize who you were at first. My name is Spencer Reid." He left off the "doctor," know that the title could be intimidating to some people. "I'm with the FBI, and we've come here to help out with some cases. Your officers probably forgot to tell you. David Cherry and Shawnda Nugent know we're here. If you'd like, I can see if one of them is in the office yet, and then they can tell you all about it." Reid knew that invoking the name of Sam Lahr would do no good, since he had been hired when Chief Moss was forced out. If Moss remembered the name at all, it would not have pleasant connotations for him. His two second-in-commands were safer names to reference.

To his relief, Chief Moss relaxed his grip on the papers and let out a low laugh. "Dave and Shawnda, eh? They asked you here? Those two idiots are constantly doing things and forgetting to tell me about it." He dropped the papers back on the table and stuck out a meaty hand. "Geoff Moss, Chief of Police."

Reid overcame his usual reluctance to shake hands in order to keep the positive vibes going. "Dr. Spencer Reid," he repeated, this time including his title to give more credence to his claims. "And this," he had noticed JJ stopping in the doorway inquiringly, "is Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau. JJ, this is Police Chief Moss."

JJ caught on immediately and put out her hand to shake the chief's. "Pleased to meet you, sir. May I ask why you took down all our pictures from the board?"

Chief Moss looked down at the papers in his hands as if noticing them for the first time. "Oh. Sorry about that. But you had them up there in the wrong places."

JJ's smile was warm, but Reid could decipher the puzzlement beneath it. "Really? Could you show us how they're supposed to be? Maybe put them in order on the table while I consult with Dr. Reid outside?" she asked. She half-shrugged her shoulders toward Reid. Obviously she was torn between wanting to placate the man and wanting to get their information re-organized so they could get to work.

"Sorry, JJ, he was already here when I came in," Reid explained once they were out in the hallway.

"Oh, no, Spence, I totally understand. The question is, what are we going to do now? I haven't seen anyone else here except the one officer at the front desk, and he looks like he's about twelve years old. I seriously doubt he'll be able to placate Chief Moss, and we have witnesses scheduled to show up here in about ten minutes."

Reid glanced at his watch, confirming JJ's timing. "Ok. Is there somewhere else we can send the witnesses when they arrive?"

"I guess we can use Chief Lahr's office until he gets here."

"Then I'll handle Chief Moss. Hopefully he'll let me put the board back together if I let him help me, and maybe by then one of the detectives will have come in."

JJ went to tell the officer at reception where to send the witnesses when they arrived while Reid re-entered the conference room. Chief Moss had all the pictures spread out in front of him, but he was still shuffling them around. Obviously he had some pattern in mind, but Reid was at a loss as to what it might be.

"Can you explain your thinking to me?" he asked as he sat down beside the former chief.

"It all depends on the timing," Moss replied. "If it's at the beginning, then it should look like this." He arranged the pictures, grouping them in a way that made sense only to him. "But if it's in the middle, then this one goes up here." He picked up the picture of Beth Carregan and moved it to the top of the table. "And then, of course, at the end she's right in the middle." He moved the picture once again.

By this time JJ had come back into the room. She examined the photographs, but the placement made no sense to her. "Why should she be in the middle, Chief?" she asked.

"Because that's where she ends up, after the dance. For the lift, you know. That's the most important part."

Reid picked up Beth's picture, thinking he might be able to figure out Moss's pattern if he had some more data. "What if we put it here?" he inquired, placing the picture at the top left of the table.

"Oh, no! No, no, no! That's totally wrong!" the chief shouted, grabbing the picture back up again. "Nobody puts Baby in a corner. Everybody knows that."

Suddenly, JJ got it. She flashed back to her teenage years, to a date night with her high school sweetheart at a movie house that showed classic films. "Oh my, God, Spence. That's it. It's _Dirty Dancing_. They're all the characters. Beth is Baby. That's her father, and her mother, and her sister." She pointed at three more of the pictures.

Reid had no idea whatsoever what JJ and Chief Moss were saying. "No, that's Matthew Aberdeen, Isabell Rodgers and Elizabeth Ziq."

"No, Reid, don't you see? It's the movie _Dirty Dancing_. My God, he's even taken the minor characters. What is he doing?"

Chief Moss was still examining the pictures intently, moving some of them minutely into place. "It was the movie that made Lake Lure famous," he informed them. "They filmed it here in 1987. Brought a ton of money and tourists to the place." When he was talking about something from the past, something he knew well, he sounded completely normal. "During the summer you can eat in the dining room at the Lake Lure Inn where they filmed the last scene, and tour the old boy scout camp that stood in for the dancers' housing. You know, the long stairway up, and then the cabins themselves."

Reid was no less lost than he had been previously. "I take it you're talking about some popular movie. But if it was filmed in 1987, how can these people be the actors from the filming?"

"No, they're not the actual actors," JJ explained. "That was Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. But Beth does bear an uncanny resemblance. And the father was Jerry Orbach, and that guy Matthew looks an awful lot like him."

"But you're missing Johnny," Chief Moss interrupted. He looked over all the photographs again. "No, there's definitely not a Johnny picture here."

"So that must mean we still haven't discovered one abductee," concluded JJ. "I'll call Garcia and see if she can find a Patrick Swayze lookalike who's missing."

"No, I don't think so," Reid stopped her. "Call back the rest of the team. We're ready to give the profile."

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AN: So, there's the big reveal. As is often the case, I knew how the scene should go in my head, but what came out on the paper was totally different. I hope it didn't seem too forced. Now that it's out there, and if you care about such things, all the titles of the chapters are quotes from the movie, or as close as I could get them within the confines of the FF rules – chapter titles can only be so many characters long.


	8. I always dance the last dance

Two hours later the whole team was back at the station giving the profile to Chief Lahr and Deputies Cherry and Nugent. It was strange giving a profile to such a small group, but this was the entire investigatory team in Lake Lure. Chief Moss had been driven home, where his sister had been horrified to realize he had left without her knowledge. Lahr and Nugent were gazing at the team expectantly, while Cherry had grabbed a chair and put his feet up on his desk, leaning back on two legs.

Hotch began. "We're looking for a white male between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. Most likely he's lived in Lake Lure his entire life."

Rossi continued. "He's either unemployed or works at a low level of employment. If he deals with the public at all, it's in a very limited capacity."

"Think gas station attendants or fast food workers," Morgan added. "He might be able to take orders, but nothing that would require him to think much for himself."

"Are you saying he's mentally disabled?" asked Deputy Nugent, who was studiously taking notes.

"Not necessarily," Reid responded. "It's more that he's socially stunted. Even though he's a grown man, his social skills are similar to those of a middle school student."

Deputy Cherry commented, half under his breath, "Kinda like you?"

Chief Lahr put his hand on the back of Cherry's chair and pushed it forward, slamming the front two feet back onto the floor. "Ignore him," he implored over Cherry's protest. "His social skills could use a bit of work themselves."

Reid shook his head, a puzzled expression on his face. "All right. As I was saying, poor social skills. As a result, it's highly unlikely that he has a wife or a long-term girlfriend. He may have attempted to ask out local women, but chances are no one who actually knew him would take such advances seriously. And any woman who did attempt to date him would quickly discover that his interests were severely limited. In fact, he most likely has only one major interest."

"And that interest is perhaps the most important thing about him," JJ took over. "He has an obsession with the movie _Dirty Dancing_."

"That could be half the people in town," Lahr observed. "It is the biggest money-maker Lake Lure has ever had."

"This is different," JJ responded. "This isn't just interest, or even passion. This is all-out obsession."

Kate interjected, "He's probably seen the movie thousands of times since it came out. He knows every line, even though memorizing things is not usually his strong suit."

Deputy Nugent had a question. She hesitantly raised her hand, and Hotch nodded for her to speak. "Just the original movie, or the remake also?"

"There's a remake?" Reid asked. "I didn't know that."

"Something you don't know?" Cherry sneered. "I'm shocked."

Hotch put a hand on Morgan's shoulder before he could lunge at the younger man. He needn't have bothered, because Chief Lahr was on his deputy before Morgan could have gotten there, gripping his arm and hauling him out of his chair. "Cherry. My office. Now."

The man tried to share a look of contempt with Nugent, but Nugent stared him down, her expression rigid. Obviously Cherry was the only one in the administration who found him amusing. Lahr hustled him into the back office, throwing a quick, "Sorry," over his shoulder as they went.

With two of the three officers missing, there didn't seem to be much point in continuing the profile. The team stood there uncomfortably for a few minutes, while Deputy Nugent studiously read through her notes, apparently embarrassed to look at them. Finally it was Reid who broke the uneasy silence.

"I need to watch this movie," he announced to the group at large. "And unfortunately I can't watch a movie at 20,000 words a minute, so I'd better get started. I'm going to go back to the conference room and see if Garcia can run it for me on the laptop."

"It wouldn't be a bad idea for all of us to view it again, since it's such an integral part of this case," Hotch agreed.

Shawnda Nugent finally looked up from her notes. "We have a projector," she offered. "I can hook it up to your laptop. It would be easier for all of you to watch."

"That would be lovely," Rossi agreed. "Let me help you." He went with the young woman toward a closet while the rest of the team filed into the conference room.

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Beth was beyond exhausted. Johnny had kept at the dancing lessons for what had to be hours before taking her back to the empty room and locking her in again. The lessons had been excruciating, not because Johnny was being intentionally cruel, but because he had no idea what he was doing. It had taken a half hour or so for her to even figure out that he was trying to teach her a samba. Once she picked up on that, she had tried to show him what the moves were supposed to be. Six years of dance lessons had left her more than able to dance a simple samba, but Johnny didn't seem interested in doing the dance properly. Instead, he wanted to teach her without having any idea what the moves were. To make matters worse, he couldn't remember what he had taught her previously, so he would get angry at her for making mistakes when she knew for a fact she was doing exactly what he had asked. He had finally gotten frustrated enough that he had put the blindfold and handcuffs back on her, not nearly so gently this time. Half dragging her, this time he had only taken her down three flights of stairs and a short hallway before arriving back at her room. He thrust her in and slammed the door without a word.

She had tried to sleep, but the hard floor did not make for a restful bed, and the room was too chilly for comfort. So instead she tried to figure out some sort of escape plan. If she could trick Johnny into fastening the handcuffs in front of her, instead of behind her back, maybe she could rip off the blindfold and run for it the next time he took her out of the room. Or maybe she should try screaming. She hadn't heard any other people during their route to and from the dance studio, but maybe there were people nearby she didn't know about.

She had finally drifted into an uneasy sleep when the sound of the locks on the door opening jolted her to full wakefulness. By the time Johnny came in, she was climbing to her feet, not wanting to be sitting on the floor with him looming over her.

"I know what the problem is," Johnny told her excitedly as soon as he entered the room. "We need to go to the lake, to the private spot. We can work on the steps on a fallen tree over the water, and then we can work on the lift."

Beth recognized that Johnny was describing scenes from _Dirty Dancing_. Nobody could come to Lake Lure and not be aware of the movie. Her parents had insisted she and Isabella watch it the week before this interminable vacation had started. She had found it cheesy and formulaic, although Isabella had, of course, loved it. Isabella. Beth stifled a sob when she realized she was probably never going to see her big sister again.

"Johnny, please let me go."

"Go?" the man seemed bewildered by the request. "Where would you go, Baby? We have to get the dance right, and then we'll be able to show everyone at the talent show. You know, I always do the last dance of the season. That jerk Neil is going to try to take it away from me, try to get me fired, but you and me, we're going to show them, Baby."

"I'm not Baby!" Beth cried. "I'm not Baby, and you're not Johnny. My name is Beth Carregan, and I have parents and a sister who are missing me right now. If you let me go, I promise, I won't tell anyone who you are or what you did."

Johnny stepped forward and wiped her hair out of her face. "Shhh. Don't cry, Baby. You'll get it. We'll practice night and day, and you'll get the dance before the talent show, I promise."

Beth wasn't sure how far to push things. This guy was obviously delusional in a major way. Should she keep fighting him, try to break him out of his fantasy? Should she play along? She tried to remember what she had seen on some of the cop shows her parents liked to watch, but the information had always seemed rather contradictory to her. If he was psychotic she should do one thing, but if he was sociopathic she should do something else, or maybe it was the other way around. The whole thing made her head throb.

Suddenly she remembered what he had said earlier. "The lake? Did you say we should go to the lake?"

Johnny smiled. "That right, Baby. Once we're in the water, we can practice the lift without worrying about getting hurt."

Beth knew that any lake in the area, including Lake Lure itself, would be frozen solid. But maybe this would be her opportunity. She decided that playing along was her best chance. "That sounds like a great idea, Johnny. When can we go to the lake?"

Johnny glanced at his watch. "I have to go to work now, darn it," he told her, "but I get off at four. I'll come back, and we'll go then."

Beth wondered if Johnny was really going to a job somewhere, or if he thought he was going to teach dance lessons like the character in the movie. In either case, it seemed he was going to leave for a while. "Johnny, do you think you could let me stay in the dance studio, instead of down here? I could practice the moves better up there than I can in here."

"Silly," Johnny chuckled. "You can practice here just fine. I brought you some food." He reached outside the door and brought in a paper bag and a to-go Styrofoam cup with a straw in it. "I'll be back soon. Don't worry, Baby. You'll get it."

With that he was gone, shutting and locking the door behind him. Once again in the dark, Beth sat on the floor to eat her breakfast and plan her escape.


	9. Don't you tell me what to see

AN: I hope people are still enjoying this story. I only got one review for the last chapter, which hopefully just means it wasn't terribly reviewable and not that it was terribly dull. Some more action is coming.

BTW: Where the heck is Matthew Gray Gubler? Three episodes without him is torture. At least they mentioned him this week; I found it exceedingly odd that no one was even remarking on his absence or saying, "Gee, I wish Reid was here to help."

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Deputy Shawnda Nugent was an enormous help to the BAU team as they watched _Dirty Dancing_. Having grown up in Lake Lure, she knew where every scene had been filmed, even though the movie had been made before she was born. It had been one of the first films shot entirely on location in North Carolina, which meant no sound stages had been built. "Every place you see in that movie can be found somewhere in this area," she informed the team as they watched, "although, of course, some of them don't look like they did for the filming."

Toward the end of the screening Chief Lahr and a sheepish Deputy Cherry slid into the back of the conference room and watched the climatic dance scene with them. After the credits rolled and Hotch turned the lights back up, Cherry mumbled an apology to the team, particularly to Reid. He waved it off, telling the other man it was "fine," Reidism for "not fine at all, but I don't want to get into it." The BAU didn't have time to hassle with a member of local law enforcement who had a problem with their resident genius. They had a missing person and a serial kidnapper to find.

"All right," Hotch said, pulling the smaller map showing just Lake Lure down from the board and placing it on the conference table. "We have three main locations where filming was done: the Meadowland Inn, Camp Chimney Rock, and the old farm where the log and the lake scenes were filmed. That's here, here and here," he pointed to three spots on the map. "Do all three still have standing buildings?" he asked Nugent.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Most of the cabins at the camp burned down years ago, but Johnny's cabin survived. Out at the farm there's the old farmhouse and a barn. They weren't used in the movie, but they're there. And, of course, the Inn is still in use. You're staying there."

"That's a lot of ground to cover," Rossi noted.

"And we need to hit them all at once," added Morgan. "If we go to the wrong location and he realizes we're on to him, he'll kill Beth before we can get there."

Hotch agreed. "Obviously we're going to have to split up. Morgan, you and Reid go to the camp. Rossi and JJ, you take the farm, and Kate and I will go to the Inn."

David Cherry interrupted him. "Hang on a second. Are you trying to say you think this nutcase is hanging out at one of the old film locations just waiting for us to show up and nab him? Why the hell would he be at any of these spots? I'd think we'd have a lot more luck checking hotels and motels for suspicious visitors, maybe guys who've come back more than once."

The team subconsciously took a step back from the table, well aware that the man's interruption and contradiction of Hotch were not going to set well with the senior agent. However, they also knew he wasn't going to yell or blow up; Hotch's MO was quiet and firm, not loud and chaotic.

"Deputy Cherry, if you had paid any attention when we were giving the profile, you would know that the man we're looking for is neither a visitor nor a transient in Lake Lure. Like it or not, he is a member of this community. He has been kidnapping people in this area for a decade."

Cherry didn't know enough to back down. "Yeah, if he stays here, why haven't we found any bodies then? Are you trying to say he's kept all those people alive all this time? Maybe he's set up his own little town with them in it, and we've just never noticed."

Rossi met sarcasm with sarcasm. "I wouldn't put it past some members of local law enforcement to miss an entire town."

"The sooner we find him, the sooner we'll know what he did with the bodies," JJ tried to soothe over the tense situation.

Morgan interjected, "Hopefully before Beth Carregan becomes one of those bodies."

"We need to get going," Hotch agreed.

"I'll go with you to the Inn," Chief Lahr offered as the same time as Deputy Nugent said, "I can help with the farmhouse. I know all the back roads to get there." There was a brief pause, during which everyone studiously looked away from Deputy Cherry.

"Guess I'm going out to Chimney Rock Camp," he grumbled after a moment, his lack of enthusiasm evident by his tone. "I'll just go get my jacket."

"I am really sorry," Chief Lahr expressed both regret and embarrassment. "I don't know what his problem is. He's usually much more of a team player than this."

"It's not a problem," Hotch assured him.

"We can handle it," Morgan said, his demeanor indicating that he would handle Cherry himself if necessary. "Let's go, Reid. Cherry can meet us at the SUV."

Reid grabbed his coat and hurried to catch up with Morgan's long strides. At the SUV, Morgan opened up the front passenger door. "Sit up here, Reid," he instructed.

"But I always sit in the back," Reid replied.

"I don't care," Morgan stated. "I have no intention of sitting up here listening to that arrogant prick. Not only do I want you to sit in front, I want you to tell me all about the newest Dr. Who."

"Seriously?" Reid asked eagerly, climbing into the shotgun seat.

"In detail."

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Beth was cold, really cold. Johnny had handcuffed and blindfolded her and led her stumbling up a set of stairs and out a door. Then, without a word, he had scooped her up and dumped her into a space she quickly realized was the trunk of a car. She tried rubbing her face against the rough carpeting to dislodge the blindfold, but it was tied too tightly. They had been driving for a while now, and Beth was sure they were traveling over an unpaved road. She gasped as she felt the wheels slip and slide, wondering if she should hope that they got in an accident or not. On the one hand, if the car were disabled, it might save her from whatever Johnny had planned. On the other, if they crashed in the middle of nowhere, she might never be found. Neither hand mattered at the moment, because Johnny pulled out of the skid and continued driving.

Sometime later the car stopped and the engine cut off. Again Beth pondered her options. She could kick out at Johnny as soon as he opened the trunk, but she wasn't sure she would even be able to climb out with her hands cuffed behind her, much less run away blindfolded. She'd have to wait for a better opportunity.

Strong hands grabbed her upper arms and lifted her out onto her feet. "You won't need this," Johnny proclaimed, removing the blindfold. Beth blinked in the sudden brightness. The sun was straight overhead and reflected off fields of snow in two directions. Behind them lay the road Johnny had driven in, barely discernable as separate from the ground around it since they were equally covered in snow. There was only the one set of tire prints, indicating there was no one around to whom she could cry for help. At the far end of one field a decrepit farmhouse and barn should have appeared picturesque coated in white, but instead looked lonely and deserted. And directly in front of them a frozen stream stretched out between four-foot high banks, meandering away into woods in one direction and along beside the road in the other before emptying into what appeared to be a frozen lake. There was a tree trunk lying across the creek, and it was to this that Johnny led her.

"We'll work on balance," he told her eagerly, indicating the tree trunk. "It's over the water, so if we fall, we won't get hurt."

Beth gazed at the stream. It appeared to be frozen solid. Come to think of it, she was frozen pretty solid herself. She wondered if Johnny saw running water and green fields. Obviously he didn't have much of a grasp on reality. Maybe she could use that.

"Okay, Johnny, that sounds great. Just undo the handcuffs so I can hold you properly."

Johnny barked out a short laugh. "Stupid me. Of course." He pulled the car keys out of his pocket and used a small key on the ring to unlock her wrists. She gazed at the keys longingly, picturing herself grabbing them and driving away, but he stuffed them back into his pocket.

"Um, Johnny, you need to brush the snow off the log. Otherwise it will be too slick to dance on."

For a second the man looked confused. Beth wondered again if he even saw the snow around them. Was it summer in his world? Then his eyes cleared, and he crouched down to wipe at the log with his hands.

Beth waited until he had his whole body on the log before she acted. Lifting one leg, she kicked Johnny as hard as she could in the small of the back. He fell face forward off the log, landing with a thud on the ice below. To Beth's delight, the stream wasn't quite as frozen as it appeared, and it cracked beneath the man's body. He didn't plunge through entirely, but as he tried to rise the ice continued to break, wetting one leg to the knee and stopping him from regaining his feet.

Beth took off running across one of the fields. She didn't bother heading for the farmhouse; it was obviously deserted. Instead, she raced toward the woods on the far side of the field, planning to lose herself among the trees.

"Baby, come back!" Johnny called plaintively. "We have to dance. Come back."

Beth almost felt sorry for him, he sounded so forlorn, but nothing would make her turn back now. Without even glancing around she continued toward the trees as quickly as she could through the snow. With luck, she could get far enough ahead of Johnny that he wouldn't be able to follow her tracks through the woods. And it seemed that Nature was trying to help her hide, because the snow started falling again.


	10. You'll hurt me if you don't trust me

"I'm glad we drew the inside assignment," Kate remarked to Hotch and Chief Lahr as they climbed out of the SUV in front of the Meadowland Inn. Snow was starting to drift down from the grey sky overhead again, so they quickly ducked into the entranceway of the inn. Once there they started removing their overcoats and gloves, basking in the warmth brought by central heating and a roaring fire. Nancy Sharp hurried over from the front desk to take their wraps and hang them on a coat rack. "Quitting for the day already?" she asked in surprise.

"Actually, Nancy," Lahr answered, "our work brings us here."

"Do you need to take to the Carregans again? I'm not sure that they're here. I think they were going to go post some more missing posters around town, although I can't imagine there's a light pole or bulletin board they haven't hit already."

"No, the Carregans can't help us right now," Hotch informed the proprietress. "You told us when we came in that there are some parts of the inn you keep closed off."

"That's right. Saves on the heating bills."

"We need to take a look at the closed off rooms," Hotch continued.

Nancy raised her eyebrows. "You think Beth might still be in the inn?"

"We think it's a possibility," Kate said. "Particularly if there are any rooms that were part of the _Dirty Dancing_ filming."

" _Dirty Dancing_? What has that got to do with any of this?"

Chief Lahr chose to answer. "The agents think the man doing the kidnapping may be obsessed with that movie."

Biting her lip, Nancy Sharp looked to be deep in thought. "Well, the dining room was key, of course, but there's no way anybody could be hiding in there. I can show you the one guest room that was used for an interior shot, but they didn't do any acting in the guest rooms; they're too small for all the equipment and people too. Those scenes were all filmed down in the basement. They built some on-site sound stages down there using furniture from the actual rooms, but those are long gone. It's just a big empty room now. And the dance studio is in the attic. It's still part of the usual tour."

"We'll start in the basement," Hotch decided. "May we have your key?"

"I'll be happy to show you . . . " Nancy started, but Hotch cut her off.

"If he's here, we have to consider him armed and dangerous. He's not going to take kindly to his fantasy being disrupted. You need to stay up here."

Nancy nodded wordlessly and went to get the key from behind the front desk.

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Rossi and JJ had been happy to let Deputy Nugent drive since she knew the area much better than they did. They had been on the road only a few minutes when thick flakes started floating down. "Great," Rossi commented. "This will make searching the farmyard SO much more fun."

"At least it's pretty," JJ suggested.

Rossi snorted, then smiled back to where she sat in the backseat. "True enough, _cara_."

"I find all of you fascinating," Deputy Nugent blurted out as she turned off the highway onto a back road.

Rossi twisted back to face her. "What do you mean, Deputy?"

Nugent ducked her head shyly before focusing on the road. "Sorry. And please, call me Shawnda."

"Shawnda then," Rossi agreed. "And nothing to be sorry about. We're not offended, just curious. Why do we fascinate you?"

The deputy said nothing for a moment, staring straight ahead. It wasn't until JJ touched her gently on the back and murmured, "It's okay," that she went on.

"It's just, you're all so smart and knowledgeable and, well, professional," she said, "but at the same time you're so friendly and nice to each other. Like with Sherriff Moss. If David had found him going through stuff like that, he would have blown a gasket. But y'all just, I don't know, humored him without being condescending, and you actually got useful information from him. I would love to be able to do that."

"Oh, I don't know," Rossi rejoined. "I'll bet you could do just as well, given the opportunity."

"I wish," she sighed. "I'll never be more than a second-rate deputy in a third-rate town. David tells me so all the time."

JJ remarked, "I can't imagine Deputy Cherry is very easy to work with."

"He's a misogynistic jerk!' Shawnda declared. "And a bit of a racist too."

Rossi nodded. "I got that impression. I don't think he thinks too highly of any of us."

"You noticed?" Shawnda asked ironically. "At least you're male, and white. It wouldn't matter if I was a genius, he'd still treat me like an idiot."

"Don't feel too bad," JJ suggested. "He treated our genius like an idiot, too."

Rossi pulled one of his cards out of his wallet and tucked it into Shawnda's hand. She glanced away from the road for a second to see what it was, then snapped her eyes back as the tires slipped a little on the icy road. "What's this for?" she asked, sticking it in her pocket.

"If, at some point, you decided you wanted to be more than a 'second-rate deputy,' as you put it, I'd be happy to put in a good word for you at the FBI Academy."

She slammed on the brakes, spinning the car half way around. Fortunately there were no other cars in sight. "Are you serious?" she asked anxiously. "Please, if you're not serious, tell me now."

JJ laughed. "He's serious. And trust me, with a good word from David Rossi, you're a shoo-in."

Rossi patted the deputy's cheek. "Yes, _cara_ , I'm serious. You've shown a lot of initiative and intelligence working on this case. Now let's get straightened out before someone comes and plows into us."

"Thank you so much," Shawnda breathed as she expertly executed a two-point turn to get them back on the road. It was a good thing she did, too, because two minutes later an old Ford Pinto which was more rust than orange paint went past them heading back toward town much too quickly to be safe. "Wonder where's he's coming from?" Nugent wondered. "I didn't think there was anything out here but the old farm."

JJ twisted around, but the car was too far gone for her to see a license plate. "Could that be our Unsub?" she asked.

"Doubtful," Rossi answered. "There was only one person in the car. Why would he be all the way out here without Beth? She's too big a part of his fantasy for that."

"We'll know soon enough," Shawnda declared, putting on her turn signal. "We're here."

There was another set of tire prints in the lane leading up to the farm, although they were quickly disappearing under the new fall of snow. Rossi's eyes were following them to their finish, while Deputy Nugent was focused on her driving. JJ was examining the yard in front of them.

"What's that?" JJ asked, leaning forward to peer through the windshield.

"What?" Rossi asked as the same time as Shawnda asked, "Where?"

"There," JJ answered, pointing toward the woods. "There's someone standing at the base of that tree. See, they're coming this way."

"Oh my God," Shawnda declared. "I think that's Beth Carregan."

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"Interestingly enough, Capaldi was invited to audition as the Eighth Doctor, but he didn't think he would get the part, and he loved the show so much he didn't want to ruin his feelings for it by auditioning with a bunch of other actors," Reid continued his monologue.

The old camp had been easy to search, since all that remained was one cabin with a long series of steps running up to it. As far as they could tell, no one had been there since it had been closed up for the winter after tourist season was over. Morgan and Reid had ignored Cherry's, "I told you so," and headed back to the SUV. Now they were halfway down the mountain, and Reid was still going strong.

"Are you still rambling about that stupid TV show?" Cherry asked from his spot in the back. "Can't you give it a rest?"

"I happen to like listening to him talk about that stupid TV show," Morgan snapped while carefully navigating yet another switchback in the swirling snow. "And I intend to continue listening to him all the way back to the station. If you don't want to listen, you are more than welcome to sit back there and shut the hell up, because I really don't care."

Fortunately Morgan's phone rang before an argument could commence. He pulled it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, and then punched the answer key. "What's up, Rossi? Seriously? That's great!"

Deputy Cherry started to say something from the back seat, but Reid hushed him. "Let him finish."

Morgan spoke for a couple more minutes, then hung up. "They found Beth Carregan."

"That's wonderful," Reid said. "Is she okay?"

"Seems to be mostly all right, but a little shocky and hypothermic," Morgan said. "They've got EMTs on their way. Apparently all she's up for so far is answering yes and no questions, so they don't have a full description yet, but Rossi and JJ saw the guy's car. They're sending a description to our phones."

Reid pulled out his own cell as it dinged to indicate a text message. "Ratty old Ford Pinto, orange paint job mostly rusted out," he read aloud.

"The guy's probably on his way out of town," Cherry suggested. "We should head for the main highway."

"Wait, wait, wait," Reid insisted, flapping his hand toward Cherry. "Morgan, stop, go back. I saw that car."

"No way," Cherry insisted, while Morgan started looking for a place to turn around. "You can barely see anything in this snow storm. I certainly didn't see any orange car. Did you see it, Agent Morgan?"

"I didn't notice it," Morgan admitted, "but if Reid says he saw it, he saw it."

"Where was this ghost car?" Cherry demanded. "It wasn't on this road, and there aren't any turnoffs between here and the camp."

"About a mile back," Reid answered confidently. "There was a cattle gate. The car was on the other side of it, heading up the mountain."

By this time Morgan had managed a three-point turn and was heading back up. "Call Hotch," he instructed Reid, ignoring Cherry's objections. "Tell him where we're going and to send backup."

Reid hit Hotch's speed-dial number on his phone and put it to his ear. After a second he pulled it back down and looked at the screen. "No signal," he announced.

"Just as well," Cherry said, "since this is a wild goose chase."

Just then they came around a curve. On their right the cattle gate was nearly invisible in the snow. "There!" Reid proclaimed.

"Now I know you're crazy. There's no one up there," declared Deputy Cherry.

"What's up there?" asked Morgan.

"That's the back road to Occoneechee Girl Scout Camp. It was the sister camp to Chimney Rock. It's closed up for the winter, and there is no way anyone is up there. Look, the gate is locked."

Morgan had to admit that there was a thick chain around the gate, attaching it to a stout post, but before he could say anything Reid had jumped out of the SUV and strode over to the gate. He held up the chain, showing that it had been sawed in two, making it only appear to fasten around the post. Dropping the chain, Reid swung the gate open and returned to the vehicle. "Looks like he wanted to make sure no one would suspect he was up there," he said, brushing snow off and fastening his seatbelt again. "Let's go, Morgan. I'll call Hotch as soon as we get high enough to get a signal."

Morgan pulled forward slowly. The dirt road was even more treacherous than the paved one they were leaving, and he flipped a switch on the dash to turn on the four-wheel drive.

"This is crazy," Cherry proclaimed. "Even if he is up there, we shouldn't go in without backup. Let's go back to town. We can all gather at the station and come up with a real plan."

"Listen, Cherry, I don't know if you're scared or what, but we're not letting this guy get away." Morgan leaned forward, peering through the driving snow. To their left was a sharp drop-off. One wrong move could send them plunging off the edge.

"I've got one bar," Reid announced, examining his phone. "I should be able to call in just a minute."

Suddenly Deputy Cherry lunged over the back of the car seat and grabbed Reid's phone.

"What the hell?" Reid yelled, trying to take it back.

"What are you doing?" Morgan demanded.

Cherry threw the phone down on the floorboard, then reached over the seat again and made a grab for the keys in the ignition. "I am not letting you go up there," he shouted.

Reid pulled frantically on Cherry's arm , while Morgan used his elbow to shove him away. Cherry ripped his arm out of Reid's grasp, which sent his whole body slamming into Morgan. The wheel twisted as Morgan rocked at the blow. He tried desperately to straighten it out, but the SUV was skidding out of control and there was nothing he could do. For a moment they teetered, and it seemed as if they might be safe, but Cherry impulsively snatched for the keys again, and the shift of his weight was enough to send them careening over the edge and down.


	11. I'm doing all this to save your ass

JJ had immediately offered to ride to the hospital with Beth Carrigan, hoping she would soon be coherent enough to give them more information about her abductor. As a result, Rossi and Deputy Nugent arrived back at the police station without her. Ten minutes later Hotch, Kate and Sherriff Lahr pulled up as well. "Find anything?" Rossi asked as they entered the station, brushing snow off their shoulders and heads.

"We found where he'd been keeping her," Kate informed them. She showed them her phone where she had taken a photo of the isolated cell in the basement of the Inn. "Amazing to think she was right there the whole time, and nobody knew it."

"Hidden room?" Rossi inquired.

"No," Hotch answered, "nothing so unusual as that. He had simply outfitted an old closet behind the large storage room in the basement with soundproofing and sturdy locks, then piled a bunch of useless broken furniture in front of the door."

"Then how did he get in and out?" Nugent asked.

"There was actually about three feet of space between the furniture and the door," Hotch told them. "From across the room it looked like it went all the way to the wall, but when you got close enough you could slip behind it and open the door."

"So whoever he is, he has access to the basement of the Inn," Chief Lahr commented. "Not that that narrows it down much. It's not like Nancy keeps a close watch on the storage space, and it has both outside and inside doors."

Shawnda Nugent was still examining the picture on Kate's phone. "It's hard to tell from the picture, but it doesn't look like he would have held more than one person at a time in there," she observed. "Where is everyone else?"

"Good question," Kate said, putting her phone back in her pocket. "You're right, there certainly weren't a bunch of victims, living or dead, at the Inn."

At that moment Hotch's phone rang. He pulled it out of his own pocket and put it up to his ear. "Have you been able to talk to her yet?" Everyone else stopped talking and waited expectantly for him to finish speaking with JJ. He listened and made several non-committal sounds before saying, "Stay with her," and hanging up.

"Beth Carrigan was able to give JJ a tentative ID," he informed them. He picked up the coat he'd thrown over the back of a chair and started to put it back on. "She said she thinks the Unsub is the busboy at the diner."

Everyone else had started bundling up to go back out as well. At his words, Nugent and Lahr both froze. They exchanged a slow look, after which the young deputy muttered, "Oh shit," under her breath.

"What's wrong?" Rossi queried, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Is she sure it's Frankie?" Nugent asked at the same time as Lahr said, "You'd better call your other agents."

Hotch answered Nugent first. "JJ said she wasn't a hundred percent certain because she only saw the busboy one time, but she saw the Unsub clearly, and JJ felt the description she gave matched him as well. You say his name is Frankie? Frankie what?"

"Frankie Cherry," Sherriff Lahr stated slowly. "He's David's older brother."

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Derek Morgan hadn't had such a bad dream in a long time. Come to think of it, the nightmares had stopped about the time he and Savannah had moved in together. Maybe she'd been called in to work and was no longer in the bed beside him. That would explain why his subconscious was messing with him, making him believe that his legs were tied down and causing his head to pound in time with his heartbeat, which was racing much too fast for someone who was asleep. _My legs must be tangled in the sheets_ , Morgan thought. _That's why I can't move them. I just need to wake up now. I need to . . . Come on, Derek, wake up!_

Morgan's eyes sprang open, expecting to see his bedroom walls and instead seeing the spider web of the shattered windshield of the SUV and the tattered remains of an airbag. _Oh, right, we went off the road. Oh shit! And if there aren't any sheets, why can't I move my legs?_

"Shit!" This time Morgan said it out loud.

 _Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic! Can I wiggle my toes? If I can wiggle my toes, I'm not paralyzed._

Much to Morgan's relief, he could indeed wiggle his toes. Apparently he was pinned instead of injured. He blinked and shook his head to clear his mind. _Okay. We were driving up to the Girl Scout camp when that bastard Cherry grabbed Reid's phone. Reid!_

Morgan turned his head, still a little muddled. Reid was in the seat next to him, appearing relatively unhurt except for the fact that his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving, and a thin dribble of blood was running from under his hairline. His airbag had gone off as well, and the remains were filling Reid's lap.

"Reid," Morgan gasped, reaching out and shaking his partner. "Reid, wake up, man. You need to wake up."

For several long minutes there was no response. Morgan's voice grew progressively louder until he was shouting and pulling on Reid's arm. "Reid! Wake up, dammit! Wake up now!"

Finally Reid moaned softly and rolled his head. "Ow. Morgan? Morgan, stop, that hurts." Reid reached across his body with his right hand and pushed Morgan away. Now that he was moving, Morgan could see that the left arm hung limply. "What happened? Where are we?"

"At the bottom of a cliff," Morgan answered. "The car ran off the road."

"Cherry," Reid responded, remembering. "Are you okay? Is he?"

"I'm fine, just stuck. I haven't checked on Cherry yet." Morgan said, twisting around as far as his trapped legs would allow him.

Unlike Reid and Morgan, Deputy Cherry hadn't bothered to use a seatbelt. As a result, he had been flung around the backseat like clothes in a dryer when they tumbled down the mountain. Now he lay mostly crumpled in the floorboard, with just his bloody head propped against the door. Morgan could see him, but couldn't reach him. "Cherry," he called. "Cherry, can you hear me?" The deputy didn't move.

"I can't tell if he's even alive," Morgan informed Reid.

The younger agent started to reach back himself, but then pulled back with a cry of pain. "Oh, damn, my shoulder." His right hand came up to grab the upper part of his left arm, which still dangled uselessly. "Dislocated," he announced, feeling the joint gingerly. "Do you think you can pop it back in?"

"Me?" Morgan asked. "No way. I'm no doctor."

"Yeah, well, we don't have a doctor right now, and I really need to be able to use my arm. Not to mention it hurts like . . . well, it hurts a lot. I would appreciate it if you'd try."

Morgan knew that Reid had to be in absolute agony if he was willing to admit that his shoulder hurt. At the same time, he didn't have the medical training to help his friend, and he definitely didn't want to make the situation worse. "Look, let's just wait. Hotch will send someone to find us before long."

Pain had shortened Reid's usual placid temper. "Really? Because I don't remember us actually reaching Hotch to tell him where we are. And if you haven't noticed, it's still snowing, which means this entire car is going to be invisible very soon, if it isn't already. And while we can probably survive two or three days without water, it isn't something I really want to try. Not to mention, if Deputy Cherry is alive back there, I doubt he's going to last very long. One of us needs to tend to his wounds and then go for help, and I believe you said you were stuck. Or did I mishear you?"

Morgan gazed at Reid in astonishment. He always forgot how forceful the usually easygoing man could be when sufficiently irritated. "Hang on," he requested. "Before we go performing surgery, let me make sure. I haven't really tried to get loose yet."

For the next five minutes Morgan twisted and pulled, attempting every trick he could think of to get his legs out from under the collapsed dashboard, but to no avail. Reid watched him impassively at first, but grew increasingly frustrated as it became apparent that Morgan was not going to be able to get himself loose. He finally interrupted the darker man's attempts. "It's not going to work, Morgan. You are well and truly stuck. And if my shoulder doesn't get put back in the socket in the next few hours, the muscles are going to spasm and I'm going to have to have surgery to fix it, and I hate surgery. So could you please pop it in so I can get on with getting us out of here?"

Morgan conceded defeat. "Okay. You're right. Tell me what to do."

Reid gave directions as if he were reading from a textbook, which, Morgan realized, he probably was. It just so happened that the book wasn't one that was currently in front of him, but with his eidetic memory it might as well have been.

"You'll place your right hand around my upper arm and your left hand at my elbow. Raise my arm until it's at a ninety degree angle to my body. Then pull straight toward yourself with steady, continual pressure. Once you've pulled a sufficient amount the head of the humerus will slide back into the socket."

Morgan was still uneasy. "You do realize the only arm I've ever relocated was on a Barbie doll, right?"

Reid cocked his head questioningly. "When were you performing medical procedures on Barbie dolls?"

"When I was a kid, man. I had two sisters. First I pulled the arms, legs and heads off their Barbie dolls; then my moms made me pop them back on."

Reid nodded seriously. "Fortunately you do not have to relocate my head. The shoulder should be relatively easy."

Taking a deep breath, Morgan placed his hands on the arm and elbow as Reid had instructed. He started to raise Reid's arm, but froze when what little color was in the younger man's face drained out and tears glimmered in his eyes before he squeezed them shut with a moan.

"Are you sure about this, Pretty Boy?"

"Just do it, Morgan," Reid spoke through gritted teeth. "But if you drop my arm, I'm going to scream, and I may pass out."

Morgan gulped. "Great." But he did tighten his grip before continuing.

When the upper arm was perpendicular to Reid's body, his lower arm dangled from his elbow like a dead thing. Morgan started pulling toward himself. There wasn't a lot of room to maneuver inside the car, so Reid leaned as far as he could against his own door while Morgan pulled toward his. Just when Morgan thought he was going to have to give up because he couldn't pull any further, the arm slid toward Reid's torso with an audible pop. Reid sighed and relaxed, breathing deeply. "Okay, you can put it down now." Morgan lowered the arm back to Reid's side, noting that the other man could now flex his fingers. "So much better," he breathed. "Thank you, Morgan."

"You're welcome," Morgan answered, relieved. "Now what?"

"Can you get your belt off?"

"I think so." He started undoing the buckle and working the leather through the loops. "Why?"

"I need to make a sling, and my belt won't be long enough."

Morgan chuckled. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

Of course Reid took him seriously. "Not at all. In order to make the sling that I want, I'm going to need to use both belts." He undid his own belt and pulled it off. He then took the belt Morgan handed him and buckled the ends of the two together, making a large circle. He could use both hands now, but he kept his left arm against his side, moving only the lower half of it. He carefully slid the injured arm through the loop before handing the leather back to Morgan. "Put the whole thing behind my neck," he instructed, leaning forward a little to give the other man room to do so. Once the loop was hanging over his right shoulder, he put his left arm through again.

"That seems awfully complicated," Morgan noted. "Wouldn't it be easier to just use one belt?"

"The double loop sling is vastly superior when supporting a dislocated shoulder," Reid informed him. "The first loop holds my upper arm close to my body, which prevents the weight of it from pulling the joint out of place again, while the second loop allows me to move my lower arm somewhat freely. That way I'll be able to use both of my hands without re-injuring my shoulder." Reid half-turned toward Morgan. "Can you shorten the length a couple of notches for me?"

After the older agent had adjusted the sling, Reid undid his seatbelt and turned all the way around on the seat. Kneeling there he could reach down and feel Deputy Cherry's neck. "He has a weak pulse," he announced, "and he's breathing. I don't think I can do very much for him from here. It's probably better if I don't try to move him. The best thing I can do is get help back here as quickly as possible."

Reid turned back around and started trying to open his door. The frame of the SUV was bent, making the job exceedingly difficult for the slight man. Finally he managed to shove it open a foot or so, where it stuck solid.

"I can get out now," Reid decided. "Give me your phone. Who knows where mine ended up."

Morgan fished the phone out of his pocket. Before handing it over, he checked to make sure that there were no bars. "Still no signal," he announced with a sigh. "What's your plan?"

"There's no way I'm going to be able to climb back up to the road from here, not with one good arm and tennis shoes. And it's probably not a great idea to go up toward the camp anyway, not if the Unsub is up there. So I guess I'll head down toward town until I get close enough to get a signal. Try to keep warm. I'll come back as fast as I can."

Morgan reached out and turned Reid's face toward him, making sure the man he thought of as a younger brother was paying attention to him before he spoke. "You be careful," he commanded seriously. "If you get lost or get hurt, not only will no one come to rescue us, but we'll probably never find you out there."

Reid pulled away from Morgan, grabbing the phone with his good hand and sliding it into his pocket. "I've got this, Morgan. I may not be all that comfortable in the snow, or even the outdoors, but I'm not going to let you down. I'll be back with help before you know it." And with that, Reid slipped through the partially opened door, slammed it behind him, and disappeared into the thickening snow.

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AN: As a person whose arm falls off if you breathe on it wrong, I can assure you that both the description of re-locating the shoulder and the sling Reid uses are entirely accurate. So, if you ever find yourself at the bottom of the cliff in a snowed-in car with a dislocated shoulder, you'll know what to do.


	12. Leave the hard stuff to me

The announcement that their Unsub's brother was currently out with two of their fellow agents set off a flurry of activity with the remaining members of the BAU. Rossi attempted to call Morgan while Kate dialed Reid's phone; neither was successful in getting through, both receiving "not in service" messages. As soon as he saw them shake their heads, Hotch called Garcia, requesting she start an immediate search for the two men's phones.

"Why?" Garcia asked anxiously, her fingers flying over her keyboard to fulfill the request even as she questioned it. "Why do you need their phones found? Don't you know where they are? Of course you don't know where they are, or you wouldn't have asked. Why don't you know where they are? Two full grown men don't just disappear, especially Morgan, Morgan is much too large to vanish, people would notice . . . ."

"Garcia!" Hotch interrupted sternly.

"Yes sir, of course sir, I'm sorry."

"Just let us know if you get a ping on the phones, or if they call you."

"Yes, sir. You do the same, please. Find my boys."

"We will, Penelope. We will."

After hanging up with the technical analyst, Hotch paused a moment to plan. Chief Lahr interjected a word of comfort. "Just because you can't reach them doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong. The mountains around here can wreak havoc with cell phone signals. They may be driving back right now with no idea what's happening."

"It's possible," Hotch conceded, "but I'm not taking that chance. If they come strolling in here, well and good, but in the meantime we have work to do. Do you know where Frankie Cherry lives?"

Shawnda Nugent answered for him. "He and David share a cabin on Parkland Drive."

"They live together?" Rossi inquired. "Interesting. Any chance the rest of the bodies are there?"

"No way," Nugent insisted. "It's just this little four room place. I've been there a couple of times when David had to run by while we were working. And there's no yard; it's practically falling down the mountain it's so close to the edge. There's nowhere to bury a cat, much less a person."

Hotch addressed Lahr again. "He's your deputy. I hate to ask, but do you think David Cherry is working with his brother?"

Lahr was shaking his head before Hotch even finished the question. "No. Absolutely not. David may have suspected something over the past couple of days, but if he'd known anything before that he would have put a stop to it."

"Put a stop to it," Rossi repeated. "Not turned his brother in?"

Lahr hesitated. Again Deputy Cherry answered for the chief. "Frankie has had a hard time. I don't think he's officially mentally disabled, but he dropped out of high school in middle school. Their parents took care of Frankie until they both died in a car accident around ten years ago."

"Stressor," Kate said.

Cherry continued, "Since then, David's made sure Frankie took care of himself, had enough to eat, things like that."

Rossi asked, "Shawnda, I know you and David aren't very close. How did you come to know so much about his family?"

The dark-skinned deputy turned to him. "It's a small town, and I've lived here all my life except for college. Everybody knows Frankie. Most people feel kinda sorry for him, although I'm sure he's received his share of bullying over the years. After their parents died he tried to work as a tour guide, but he just didn't have the people skills to pull it off. They hired him as a bus boy at the diner more as a favor to David than because he's really good at the job."

"A tour guide?" Kate questioned. "For the _Dirty Dancing_ tours?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it."

"Okay, that seals it," Hotch interjected. "Frankie Cherry is definitely our Unsub. Dave, you and Kate head up to the camp where Morgan and Reid were searching with Cherry. Maybe you'll find them there or somewhere along the way. Deputy Nugent, will you come with me to check out the Cherrys' cabin?"

"Of course."

"What do you want me to do?" Lahr asked.

"Someone needs to inform the Carrigans that their daughter has been found. If you could take care of that, and then pick up Agent Jareau at the hospital. We'll meet you back here in an hour and a half. Hopefully by then we'll have found Reid and Morgan, and maybe even Frankie Cherry. If not, we'll have to devise a better search plan then."

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Reid walked several yards away from the car before stopping to contemplate. He was not feeling nearly as confident about hiking for help as he's led Morgan to believe, but he didn't want to let his partner know that. Adding to Morgan's worries wasn't going to make anything any easier.

Reid took a deep breath and surveyed the land around him. With the exception of the rock face down which their SUV had plunged, there were no landmarks visible through the blinding snow. Reid had a clear map of the area inside his head, but it wasn't going to be of much help if he couldn't see. Not to mention, his shoulder was throbbing abysmally, as was his head. He probably had a mild concussion, given that he'd been unconscious for some period of time in the car, and taking a deep breath let him know he at least had bruised ribs from the shoulder belt, and possibly some cracks. And it was cold out here, colder than a deep freeze, and Reid hated being cold.

"Well, nothing to be done for it," he said. He often spoke aloud when trying to psyche himself up for something difficult. "I'll keep the cliff on my left as long as I can, and I'll just keep walking downhill until I hit a road. Shouldn't be more than 3.2 miles," he estimated, picturing the map in his head. There were nearer roads, but not any that were straight downhill. Without landmarks or the sun to keep him heading the right way, he was afraid he would just wander in circles if he tried to reach one of those. At least "downhill" was a discernable direction.

Reid started walking again while he continued to strategize aloud. "I need to check for cell service at regular intervals. I can't keep the phone out all the time; it's too cold to have my hand out of my pocket. But I don't want to walk into and out of a live zone without realizing it. I could count steps, but I think that will make me more anxious than I already am. So, in order to keep time, I'll read a book, and I'll check the phone at the bottom of every page."

Of course Reid didn't have an actual book with him, and couldn't have read while he hiked if he did, but there were thousands of them inside his head. "Do I want to read something that takes place in a warm climate to keep me distracted?" he wondered. "No, I have a better idea. I'll remind myself that it could be worse."

With that, Reid started reciting Jack London's _To Build a Fire_ inside his head. "Day had dawned cold and gray when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail . . . ."

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The group of law officials re-converged at the police station with no more information than they had had when they left nearly two hours earlier. Rossi and Kate had seen no sign of their missing comrades either at the camp or on the roads between here and there. JJ had not been able to learn anything more from Beth Carregan about where Frankie Cherry might have hidden his other victims, or where he might go next. And there had been no sign of either of the brothers in their mountain cabin.

"We did find five copies of the movie," Hotch reported. "And a virtual shrine to it as well, with hundreds of still shots from the film. But no indication of where Cherry would go in a crisis. Either Cherry."

Rossi questioned Shawnda Nugent again. "Can you think of anywhere connected with the movie where we haven't looked yet?"

The deputy shook her head. "No. But it was filmed before I was born. I know all the tourist places, but I guess there might be some places that aren't part of the usual tour. Maybe somewhere the crew all went to eat or something."

"Who would know?" Hotch asked.

"I bet Nancy would," Lahr suggested. "Nancy Sharp at the Inn. She was around when they were filming. Let me call her."

The team waited anxiously while Lahr went into his office. He returned a few minutes later with a piece of paper in his hand. "She had a few suggestions," he said. "She said the cast and crew usually ate at the Bay Breeze fish shack."

"Where is that?" JJ asked.

"I never heard of it," Shawnda stated.

"Yeah, she said it had changed hands and names a bunch of times since then," Lahr continued. "It's empty now. Last thing it was a bar called the Honey Bee. It's out off Memorial Highway on Tryon Bay Court."

"Ah, that place I know," Shawnda realized. "Sherriff Moss made them close down after a couple of guys had a fight over a girl that ended up with one of them stabbed to death. I can show you."

Hotch nodded. "Good. Where else, Sherriff?"

Lahr consulted his list. "Some of the crew stayed in the Brighton Manor Apartments. We'd need a search warrant to actually get into any of the rooms, but we can go talk to the manager and see if he knows anything. And the last place is Occoneechee Girl Scout Camp."

"What was there?" asked Kate.

"Apparently when they were originally built, it was the sister camp to the camp where they actually did the filming," Lahr answered. "It's still in use as a camp in the summers, but the rest of the year it's deserted. The film crew used it as a practice area, since many of the buildings were identical between the two camps."

"That seems unlikely," Rossi suggested. "There's no way he could be keeping a bunch of dead bodies there if the camp is in use during the summers."

Hotch agreed. "That's true, but we still need to check it. Cherry might go there even if it isn't his usual hiding spot. Dave, you and Kate go there. JJ and Chief Lahr, you two go talk to the apartment manager. Deputy Nugent and I will check out the old restaurant. And everyone, be very careful. In addition to the two Cherrys, who could be armed and dangerous, the roads are getting truly treacherous. The sun will be going down in an hour or so, and if we haven't found them by then, we're going to have to wait for morning."

"We can't just leave them out there!" Kate exclaimed.

"I don't like it either," Hotch explained, "but it's simply too dangerous on the roads after dark. I can't risk losing more people off the side of a mountain."

"So I guess we'd better find them now," declared Rossi. "Let's go."

As they stepped outside again, they couldn't help noticing that the temperature had dropped another five degrees in the time they'd been inside.

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AN: I start back to work teaching tomorrow after ten months off taking care of my sick daughter. I will definitely finish this, and I'm almost done now, but it may take me a while. I promise I won't leave Morgan and Reid out there in the snow forever.


	13. Wipe Out

Spencer Reid was so far beyond cold that the word had ceased to have any meaning to him. He was freezing, icy, frosty, frigid . . . no, maybe not frigid, that had connotations that Morgan would tease him about if given the opportunity. Morgan. Morgan would be freezing, too, Reid remembered, left behind in a car that had surely become an icebox by now, and he had to keep going if he was going to be able to help Morgan. So he continued to stumble forward blindly on feet he could no longer feel, forcing himself to move downhill, always downhill, although he couldn't precisely recollect why downhill was so important.

Because his mind insisted on keeping itself busy, even when it was numb and sluggish, he found himself recalling times in his past when he had been cold, and comparing them to what he was feeling now: Tied naked to a goalpost outside his Las Vegas high school, manacled to a chair in a shack in Georgia, standing on a boat dock in Alaska pointing a gun at a young boy who just wanted to be loved. None of those experiences had brought him anywhere near to the bone-deep iciness he was experiencing now. He quickly realized that he had no pleasant memories of being cold, not one. Other people might remember skiing or ice skating or sledding, but he had grown up in the desert, and wouldn't have been interested in such athletic pursuits anyway. Some people might think about snuggling with a lover beside a bonfire or on a hayride, but he had never had a lover with whom to cuddle in that way. Now that he thought about it, the only reason people had for enjoying the cold was in finding ways to try and escape it, either through raising their own temperature with exercise or by finding a heat source, human or otherwise. He simply could not imagine anyone relishing the cold for its own sake. There was no fun to be had at freezing temperatures, none whatsoever.

"The average low temperature in Lake Lure is forty-six degrees Fahrenheit," he muttered, dredging up facts he'd read somewhere. "There are only three days a year when the temperature drops into the single digits, and only seven days a year when the temperature stays below freezing all day. Compared to, say, Mt. Mitchell, where the temperature has fallen to negative thirty-four degrees before, it's practically toasty here. And today, it's probably only in the high twenties. Besides, people do not freeze to death unless they're wet. As long as I keep moving, I should be all right."

What he really wanted to do, more than anything he had ever wanted to do in his life, was lie down and go to sleep. He could picture himself lying in his snug bed, with an electric blanket pulled up under his chin, thermostat set at the reasonable seventy-five degrees that Morgan claimed made the apartment too hot for normal people. Or maybe lying on the couch in JJ's living room, while Henry roasted marshmallows over a fire blazing in their fireplace. JJ would bring hot chocolate, and once he dropped off, as he had many Sunday afternoons in the past, she would throw the afghan from the back of the couch over him while Will pulled Henry out to play in another room and let Uncle Spence sleep. Surely a few minutes wouldn't hurt, and if he was sleeping he wouldn't have to feel the sharp pain under his shoulder blade or the throbbing in his head, could close his eyes instead of squinting against the continuous onslaught of the stinging flakes of ice, could maybe at least pretend to feel warm for a precious span of time. He could dream about Maeve, and if he didn't wake up, would that really be such a bad thing?

Suddenly Reid's feet went out from under him. Blinded by the snow and the quickly approaching darkness, he had missed the dip downward in the unbroken field of white. He slid and tumbled, fortunately not down the side of a mountain but far and fast enough to cause him considerable pain. He rolled up against an enormous pine tree, his hurt shoulder banging against the trunk with an audible thud that brought a cascade of snow from the branches above down upon him. He quickly used his good arm to scrape enough away from his face to allow him to breathe, then lay gasping and groaning. "Well, I'm awake now," he finally announced to no one, and slowly started using the branches of the tree to pull himself out of the snow pile and back onto his feet. He had a hard time finding purchase on the snow-overlaid icy pine needles, and it was several minutes before he could stand relatively upright under the towering fir.

He had bruises on top of his bruises, but nothing seemed to be any more broken than it had been before he fell, and the adrenaline rush had actually cleared his brain a bit. He suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be checking his phone, well, Morgan's phone, to see if he had a signal. He had no idea how much time had passed since the last time he had pulled it out of his pocket. Sometime previously he had finished reading _To Build a Fire_ to himself and had moved on to _White Fang_ , but had lost the train of that story fairly early on. About that time he had also stopped verifying the lack of bars. "Spencer Reid, you're an idiot," he told himself. His only purpose in this mad journey was to find a phone signal, and he'd forgotten to do it. Shaking his head ruefully, he managed to work the cell out of his coat pocket, relieved to see that he hadn't lost it or smashed it in his fall down the hill. His hand was too cold to properly work the buttons, so he pushed the front of the phone against his cheek, pressing several keys at once and turning on the screen. One signal bar lit up faintly. He was close, so close to being able to call for help. If he just kept moving, he should soon be near enough to a tower. Downhill, that was the key.

Reid stepped out from under the pine tree so that he could figure out the best way to move forward. He had to duck under the weighted-down branches, his eyes still glued to the screen of the cell. Once he was clear, he looked up and hastily fell back, allowing the branches of the tree to scrape against his back and bringing still more snow down on his head, but a little more snow was the least of his worries. The tree against which he had fetched up was growing on a shelf, halfway down the hill. Above him the slope was gradual, which had allowed him to slide relatively gently down to his current position. Below him, the drop was abrupt. Had he taken another step, he would have plunged thirty feet or more straight down.

Reid had to sit and breathe deeply for several minutes before he could calm himself enough to think rationally again. He didn't usually consider himself to be afraid of heights, but the sheer drop inches from his feet nearly paralyzed him. Once he thought he was in control enough to stand, he carefully placed the phone back into his pocket and took a firm hold of one of the tree branches, wanting an anchor in case he slid. Once he was standing, he judiciously considered his options. He could not stay where he was. Without a cell phone signal, no one would ever find him. Obviously going forward was not a possibility. He studied the hill down which he had previously fallen. Under normal circumstances he imagined he could climb back up it fairly easily, but circumstances were far from normal. While not terribly steep, the slope was coated with ice and snow; he only had one arm with which to steady himself should he fall; and with the sheer drop at the bottom, the consequences of sliding down again could quite possibly be fatal.

Reid edged gingerly around the large pine tree, keeping tight hold of the branches as much as he could. On the other side, the shelf on which he was standing seemed to continue along the side of the mountain for at least some distance. With the white blanket of snow it was difficult to gauge where the ridge might end, but it was the only alternative open to him. "It's wider than it looks," Reid reassured himself. "At least three feet, the standard width of a sidewalk in DC. You walk down those without falling off the edge all the time. You can do this." Despite his self-assertions, it was ten more minutes before Reid was able to force himself to let go of the tree and step out along the shelf. In the end he was only able to do so by imagining the team finding him there, too scared to move, and how disappointed he thought they would all be. He took one step, and then another. For a moment he glanced over toward the drop to his left, and then quickly shifted his eyes forward. "You can do this," he told himself again. Because, really, what choice did he have?

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AN: Thanks to whoever nominated my story "All Grown Up" for the Profiler's Choice Awards. It makes me feel all warm and squishy inside.


	14. Where are you tonight?

Derek Morgan was trying for approximately the three-hundred and tenth time to work his legs free from under the mangled dashboard when he heard a low groan come from the area behind him. Twisting as far in the seat as he could, he could just make out Deputy David Cherry rolling his head gingerly from side to side in the space behind him. "Cherry," Morgan called anxiously. "Cherry, can you hear me? Are you alive back there?"

The only answer was another moan, followed shortly by a feeble banging against the back of Derek's seat. "Cherry," Morgan tried again. "We were in a car crash. You probably shouldn't try to move. Just lie still. Reid's gone for help."

If Cherry heard him he didn't respond. Instead Morgan could hear a faint scrabbling as if Cherry were attempting to grab onto something but wasn't getting any purchase against the smooth seat back. "Cherry, c'mon, man, you're just going to make things worse. Lie still," Morgan demanded. "Reid should be back soon. They'll get us out of here and take you to the hospital. You'll be fine." Morgan didn't really believe most of what he was saying. Reid had been gone for three and half hours. If he were going to find help quickly, they would have already been here. As for Cherry being fine, it's never a good sign when someone in unconscious for as long as he had been. Morgan was frankly surprised that he was waking up at all.

This time Cherry seemed to hear him. "Morgan?" he slurred, barely intelligible. "Wha' happen'?"

"We were on our way to the Girl Scout camp to look for the Unsub when you started fighting with Reid over his phone. You knocked into the steering wheel and drove us right off a cliff."

Apropos of nothing Morgan could fathom, Cherry suddenly blurted, "My brother! Where's Frankie?"

"Frankie? Who the heck is Frankie?"

"My brother," Cherry repeated. "We were looking for my brother. Did we . . . did we find him?"

Morgan was utterly confused. He decided the crash must have scrambled Cherry's brains. "No, man, we weren't looking for your brother. I didn't even know you had a brother. We were looking for the Unsub. The one who kidnapped Beth Carregan, remember? Reid saw his car going up toward the Girl Scout camp."

"That was Frankie," Cherry insisted. "That was my brother."

Suddenly Morgan caught on. "Are you saying your brother is the kidnapper?"

"I don't know. But that's his car."

For a second Morgan forgot that his legs were pinned and tried to turn around to look David Cherry in the face. He was pulled up short by the dashboard, and he beat his fist against it in frustration. "Dammit. You're telling me that your brother has been kidnapping people all these years? And you never did anything about it? You're a cop, for God's sake."

"I didn't know," Cherry protested weakly. "I had no idea . . . until y'all said the kidnapper was obsessed with _Dirty Dancing_. And even then . . . . Agent Morgan, do you have a brother?"

"No," Morgan said coldly. "And even if I did, I wouldn't cover up a crime for him."

"A sister?" Cherry tried again.

"Two sisters," Morgan admitted, "but I wouldn't . . . . "

"I wouldn't have covered for him," insisted Cherry. "I wouldn't have, if I had known for sure. But can you even imagine your sisters doing such a thing? Can you imagine them being that, I don't know, screwed up? When we were kids, I worshipped the ground Frankie walked on. He's my brother, Morgan. He's all I have. I just couldn't see him . . . . He's not a bad person. How could he . . . ? How could . . . ?" Cherry's voice faded away.

"Cherry?" Morgan shouted. "Cherry, c'mon, stay with me, man. It won't be long now."

"I'm here," the injured man replied. But Morgan wasn't sure if he really was or not.

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Aaron Hotchner was as close to flustered as he ever got. The number of things that he and his team did not know seemed to be growing exponentially as the hours progressed. They didn't know who the Unsub was, or where he was. They didn't know where the bodies of the missing victims might be, or even for sure that there weren't any victims still alive. And they didn't know where their missing teammates and the deputy had disappeared to. For such a small town Lake Lure seemed to have an inordinate number of hiding places, and he or someone else on his team had looked into most of them over the past four hours. Now they were back at the police station, and Hotch was trying desperately to think up some logical next move. His team was sitting around the conference table, along with Sheriff Lahr and Deputy Nugent, and they all looked just as overwhelmed as he was.

"The snow is getting bad out there," Lahr reported, looking at the Doppler radar on his phone. "Really bad. I don't know how much longer we're going to be able to search."

"Not that we have any idea where to search," Rossi added dryly.

Kate put in anxiously, "But we can't give up. Morgan and Reid are out there, somewhere, along with Deputy Cherry." She stood up from her chair, nervous energy overcoming exhaustion, and started peering at Reid's map on the white board, trying to discover just one more place where they had yet to explore.

Hotch's phone sounded, indicating an incoming call. He grabbed it and looked at the display eagerly, hoping against hope that one of his missing agents was finally calling in. The name exhibited was a disappointment, but he tried not to let it show in his voice as he answered. "Garcia, I'm putting you on speaker. Do you have anything for us?"

Garcia's voice burst out in an explosion of words. "I do, sir, at least I think I do. I'm pretty sure. It was only for an instant, you know, not long at all, if I hadn't been looking right at it I would have missed it entirely, but I've been staring every second, just in case, and there it was!"

When she paused to gasp in a necessary breath, Hotch jumped in before she could start babbling again. "Garcia. What did you find?"

And she was off again. "Oh, sir, of course, I didn't actually tell you. I was so excited at getting some information, any information, that might help find our boys and bring them home, I forgot to let you know what that information was. I should really learn to give you the important stuff right away, you'd probably appreciate that, but I get so . . . "

This time Hotch didn't wait for a breath. "Garcia!" he demanded sternly. "Tell us what you have. Now."

"Oh!" Garcia bit off her words. They heard her take a deep breath before she continued at a more sedate pace. "Yes, sir. I received a ping from Morgan's phone. It didn't last for very long, like maybe he drove into an area that had service and then drove right back out of it again, but it was definitely there."

"Penelope, can you track his location?" Rossi asked, afraid to get his hopes up.

"Not exactly, sir, it didn't last long enough, but I can narrow it down to the three towers the signal bounced off of. I'm sending their locations to your phones now."

All of the agents' phone beeped in rapid succession, indicating Garcia's text message had come through. Pulling up the message, JJ read the first of the coordinates to Kate, who used a neon green marker to make an X on the map.

"Thanks, Garcia," Hotch said, picking his phone back up. "We'll let you know as soon as we have any news."

"Just find them, sir," Garcia requested before Hotch hit the "end" button.

By that time Kate had marked all three of the cell towers and had drawn a rough isosceles triangle connecting them. The short side covered only about a mile, while the two longer sides were close to 3 miles each. Deputy Nugent examined the map closely. "There's no way he drove into and out of signal range," she declared. "There are no roads at all going through that area, not even logging roads."

"Could he have walked through it?" JJ asked.

Kate challenged that idea. "Garcia said the signal only lasted for a second. Even if he were running, he would have been in the area for longer than that."

"Maybe his phone is dying," Rossi hypothesized. "He just had enough power to turn it on and it cut right back off again."

"It doesn't really matter why the transmission was so short," Hotch declared. "We know that Morgan was in that area, and it's the only lead we have. How close can we get to it by car?" he asked the deputy.

Nugent picked up a different marker and put two more marks on the map, this time in orange. "The highway cuts through here," she said, pointing to one mark. "There's actually a scenic overlook a mile or so from your search area. And this one is a back road that heads through the state park toward the top of Chimney Rock. It's not going to be easy driving in this weather. I don't know if you'll be able to get all the way in, but if you do you'll only be a few hundred yards from this side of the triangle."

While they'd been talking, Sheriff Lahr had gone into his office to take a phone call. He stepped back into the conference room as the agents started to prepare to go back out. "I'm afraid Nugent and I aren't going to be able to go with you this time," he announced to the assembled group. "I've just had a report from the caretaker for the local girl scout camp. Looks like some poor sap chose to use their main lodge as a place to blow his brains out. He says it's a real mess. We have to head up there."

"Is he sure that it was a suicide? Is there any chance this is related to our case?" Hotch asked.

"I suppose anything is possible at this point," Lahr conceded.

Hotch nodded decisively. "Right. Would you be willing to take Agent Callahan with you and let Deputy Nugent continue to work with us? Kate can act as liaison if it turns out your case is somehow connected to ours, and we could use someone who knows the terrain better than we do for our search."

After thinking about it for a moment, Lahr nodded. "That'll work. Agent Callahan, get your coat and bundle up. The camp's lodge has open walls. It's going to be cold."

Kate went to get her coat and gloves, while the rest of the team split up the search area. "Nugent will go with me up the logging road," Hotch decided. "Dave, you and JJ go to the overlook off the highway. We'll start hiking this direction" - He ran his finger southwest on the map – "And you head north along this cliff. We should be able to stay in phone contact, since the search area is predicated by where Morgan's signal originated. Call me every fifteen minutes so we stay oriented, and of course call right away if you find any evidence of them." He waited to make sure Rossi and JJ understood the plan before saying, "Let's go."

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An IQ of 187, able to read 20,000 words a minute, three PHDs and three bachelor's degrees, and the only thought Spencer Reid was able to formulate any more was, "It's cold." Actually, one more thought was trying to wriggle its way into the back of his brain, but so far he had managed to keep it mostly at bay. Occasionally he would almost think it, but then he would steadfastly focus his mind back on, "It's cold." The thought that seemed determined to find its way in, the one he was trying so resolutely to ignore but was finding it harder and harder to do so, was, "I'm going to die."

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AN: There is never an excuse for waiting this long to finish a chapter, but I do have some explanations. Feel free to skip this part; it won't add anything to the story.

I actually read every single story which was nominated for a Profiler's Choice Award. Thank you to the people who voted for my story "All Grown Up," which won a PCA for Best Spencer Reid and a runner-up for Best Derek Morgan.

My muse really doesn't like being cold (ironic given this story, I know). When our power was out for five days I kept thinking, "I really should write" – but I didn't.

I completely blame SpencerRemyLvr for introducing me to the Supernatural TV show and addicting me with the intensity of Dilaudid. And there's TWELVE seasons to watch.

But the Profiler's Choice Awards are done, it's getting warmer, and, well, how many episodes of a TV show can you watch in a day (don't answer that). I'll try really hard to get the next chapter out more quickly. I promise.


	15. You don't understand the way it is

AN: I seriously debated the order of the sections in this chapter, and moved them around several times. Let me know if you think I got it right, or if I should have put them differently and how.

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Hotch's phone rang while he was battling to keep the SUV moving forward through whiteout conditions. He took one hand off the wheel long enough to fish the buzzing instrument out of his pocket, and then handed it to Detective Nugent without even a glance. He was afraid if he took his eyes off the road, he would lose the ability to even pretend that he could see where he was going.

"Agent Hotchner's phone, Deputy Nugent speaking." After a pause, she said, "Let me put you on speaker so he can hear you."

Nugent fumbled with the buttons on the unfamiliar phone for a moment before Kate's voice came through the speaker. "Hey, Hotch, I think we can safely assume that this guy was the Unsub."

"Based on what?" Hotch asked.

Kate replied, "The car JJ and Rossi saw is sitting outside of the lodge where he killed himself. And, more importantly, he left a note."

"Did he confess?" Nugent asked eagerly.

"Not exactly," Kate answered. "Here, I'll read it to you: 'The reason people treat me like I'm nothin' is cause I'm nothin'. You don't understand the way it is, I mean for somebody like me. I'm balancing on shit. As quick as that, I could be down there again. Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you.'"

Hotch, who was not a fan of _Dirty Dancing_ , was confused. Deputy Nugent, on the other hand, understood immediately. "Those are two of the most famous quotes from the movie," she pronounced. "One from Johnny, and one from Baby."

"That seems good enough," Hotch acknowledged. "Kate, you finish up there. See if you can find anything that might lead us to the rest of the bodies."

"Do you want me to join you when I'm done?"

"I don't think that's wise," the unit chief answered. "Not in this weather. Get back to the hotel as soon as you can. Hopefully by the time you get there, we'll have found Reid and Morgan."

"Understood. See you soon."

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Penelope Garcia had kept her ears trained to her telephone and her eyes glued to the computer screen, praying that the first would ring or the second would ping another, more specific location. She would glance at the digital clock at the bottom of the screen occasionally, sure that hours must have passed, to find it had only been five or ten minutes since the last time she checked. "Come on, Derek," she murmured over and over. "Come on. "She didn't think she'd waited so eagerly for a call since she was a teenager hoping a first date would lead to a second. She was so focused on anticipating the call that, when the telephone rang and the computer beeped within seconds of each other, for a moment she couldn't think what to do. She froze, staring at the pulsing light on her screen, until a second ring of the phone broke her trance. She took her eyes off the monitor long enough to see "Chocolate Thunder" on the ID screen as she punched the answer button a little harder than necessary.

"Derek Morgan, it's about time you called! We've all been frantically waiting and worrying, and if you're not in some terrible predicament I am absolutely going to kill you for scaring me this badly!"

She paused, expecting to hear Morgan's voice on the other end, explaining about driving out of cell phone range and not realizing it, or having a phone die without a chance to charge up. Instead there was a long moment of silence, followed by a breathy, weak, "It's . . . me."

"Me? Who's me? Reid? Is that you?"

"Yuh . . . yuh . . . yeah."

"Reid, why are you using Morgan's phone? Where are you? Where is he? What's going on?"

"I . . . I . . . he . . ."

His voice was so fragile, Garcia could barely hear him trying to spit out words between chattering teeth. As much as she wanted answers to all her questions, she realized that she was going to have to wait. Right now, it was more important that she take care of business. Her fingers started flying over the keyboard.

"Reid? Listen to me. I can trace your location. I'm doing it right now. Rossi and JJ are very close to your position. I'm going to put you on hold so I can call them and guide them to you. Don't move, don't go anywhere. Just stay on the line. Okay?"

"G. . . G. . . Gar… Garcia?"

"Yes, baby boy, I'm listening."

"I. . . I'm . . . so. . . c. . . c. . . cold."

Garcia felt her heart break a little. Reid sounded more than cold; he sounded lost and afraid. "They're coming, Reid. Just hold on. I'll talk to you again as soon as I have them moving." She hated to click the hold button, afraid she wouldn't be able to get him back, but she had to let JJ and Rossi know where to go. She clicked the third button on her speed dial and waited for the pickup. "Rossi? I've got them."

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David Rossi and Jennifer Jareau had made it to the scenic overlook circled on the map by Deputy Nugent and were now contemplating what would probably have been a spectacular view were it not obscured by the driving snow. Neither wanted to admit it, but the idea of trying to find anything specific out there was nothing short of insane. "Which direction do you think?" JJ asked helplessly, knowing Rossi had no more idea than she did.

Rossi peered out for a minute more before answering. "Honestly, cara, I think the most important thing for us to do is not get lost or injured ourselves. Since we don't know where we're trying to go, one way is as good as another. Let's go there." He pointed to their right. "The way down seems gentler; there might even be a path under all this snow."

"Hold on a second." JJ pulled one glove off using her teeth and reached into the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out her cell phone and used the bare hand to hit a few buttons. "I've programmed our position into the GPS," she informed her partner. "As long as we don't lose reception, we'll be able to use it to get back to the car."

Rossi was impressed. He used his phone just like everyone else, but he'd never get used to all the bells and whistles some of the younger team members seemed to understand intuitively. "Good thinking," he praised. "Just keep an eye on the bars. If we walk out of range, we'll turn around and backtrack right away."

JJ nodded as she pulled her glove back on. She kept the phone in her hand as they started down the right side of the embankment. It was definitely less steep than the other side, but she still found herself sliding as much as walking toward the bottom, and if she hadn't been wearing hiking boots she imagined she would have ended up in a heap.

Just as they reached level ground, Rossi barely heard his phone buzzing over the roar of the wind. "Hang on," he told JJ, shouting to be heard as he dug beneath his voluminous coat to get into his pants' pocket. By the time he got it out it had forwarded to voice mail, but it started ringing again immediately. "Garcia," Rossi informed his partner as he answered the call. "What's up, kitten?" He listened for a moment before speaking again. "That's great, Penelope. Wait a second while I talk to JJ." He dropped the phone from his mouth as he addressed the woman in question. "Garcia has a bead on Reid. Do I have the same GPS thing on my phone that you have on yours?"

JJ nodded. "You should. They're all standard issue FBI."

Rossi put his phone back up. "Garcia, you there? Send Reid's coordinates to my phone. JJ'll put them into my GPS and we'll be able to get right to him." He paused, presumably to give her time to type. "Okay, we will. Yes, I promise." He pushed the end button and then handed the phone to JJ. She handed her own phone back to him, pulled off her glove, and input the coordinates from Garcia.

"My god, he's right here," JJ exclaimed, looking at the phone, then looking around at the frozen wilderness, then looking back at the phone. "I mean, he's within one-hundred yards of where we're standing." She raised her voice against the wind. "Reid! Reid, can you hear me?" Glancing back and forth between the phone screen and the woods in front of her, she started half-walking, half-running in the direction Reid should be, Rossi at her heels.

They were practically on top of the man before they saw him. Reid was huddled against the base of a tree, hugging his legs to his chest to conserve body heat. It was actually the glow from the upraised cell phone that Rossi saw first, a flash of unnatural light against the snow. "There!" he shouted, pulling JJ's arm in the correct direction. He fell to his knees beside the younger man and grabbed him by both shoulders. "Reid!"

Reid cried out through gritted teeth, and Rossi saw the makeshift sling too late. He proceeded more cautiously, letting go of the injured shoulder and pulling on his good arm instead. "Reid? Are you okay?"

Reid turned his head toward Rossi, but his eyes never focused. In fact, he seemed to look right through the older man, and Rossi wasn't sure if Reid had heard him or not. Then Reid's mouth opened and he appeared to be trying to say something, but Rossi couldn't hear any words. He leaned in more closely until his ear was right by Reid's face. "What did you say? I couldn't hear you."

"I. . . I'm . . . c. . . . c. . . cold."

Rossi looked up at JJ, who was standing over the pair. "I know you are, buddy. JJ and I are going to get you someplace warm. Can you stand up?"

Reid still wasn't focusing on either of his friends, but when JJ got a hand under his right elbow and started pulling he attempted to climb to his feet. Rossi hooked his arm around Reid's waist and helped him to stand, then slid around to his good side and flung Reid's arm across his own shoulders. "Lead the way," he commanded JJ, handing her own phone back to her. Following the GPS signal she started back toward the car, Rossi half-dragging Reid after her.

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It grew darker and darker inside the car as the snow covered the windshield and the windows. The world outside had fallen silent as the insulating blanket of white grew thicker. On the plus side it was actually warmer inside now than it had been when the wind had worked its way through the cracks in the car's body. For a while Morgan and Cherry had talked on and off about their families, sports, their jobs – anything Morgan could think of to keep the other man conscious and talking – but for the past ten minutes the talking had died away, and Morgan thought the deputy had fallen asleep again, or worse. He was surprised to hear the younger man's voice again.

"Morgan? You awake?"

"Yeah, man, I'm here."

"We're not going to get out of this, are we?"

"Don't say that. Reid's gonna get help . . . "

Cherry interrupted the empty platitudes. "Even if he does, how are they ever going to find us? We're completely buried by now."

Morgan had had similar thoughts, but he was depending on Reid's eidetic memory. "Reid knows where we went off the road. He'll get them here. Don't give up."

"Morgan, I am so sorry. Whatever happens . . . he's my brother. And I'm the one who fought with Reid and caused the crash. I deserve whatever happens. But you . . . I'm sorry."

"Cherry, man, shit happens. Nobody's blaming you. We're going to get out of this."

But from the backseat Morgan didn't hear another word.


	16. Gonna change the world

The struggle to get back up the embankment to the SUV pulled Reid out of his stupor enough that he actually noticed when JJ slid into the back seat beside him and started gently removing the belts he had used to sling his arm. "What?" he asked, complete sentences still being beyond him.

"We have to get you out of these clothes," she explained matter-of-factly. "You're soaked through. Rossi, go through the stuff in the back and see if there are any clothes or blankets, towels, anything to get him dry and warm."

Rossi had climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine, putting the heat on its highest setting. Now he clambered back out and went to the rear of the vehicle, where he started digging through the accumulated detritus of years of FBI use.

Meanwhile Reid was trying to push JJ away with his good arm, an act that would have been laughable in his weakened condition had he not been so intent. "No, JJ, I'm fine. I . . . ." He seemed to forget what he was starting to say, trailing off and letting his arm drop back into his lap.

JJ ignored his protests and continued unzipping his coat and unbuttoning the shirt underneath. "No arguments, Spence. We have to get you warmed up. Help me get these off of you."

Reid didn't exactly help her remove the upper garments, but he didn't go back to fighting her either. As she slid his injured arm out of the two sleeves, Rossi exclaimed from the back, "We're in luck. There's an old army blanket back here, and look, someone left a sweat suit." He passed the blanket over the back of the seat to JJ and then shook the clothing out and held it up. "it's going to be both too big and too short for him, and the jacket has oil or something on it, but at least it's dry." He carried the sweat suit with him as he slammed the hatchback closed and got back into the front seat.

By that time JJ had the shirt and Reid's shoes off and was working on his pants. "Do you want me to do that?" Rossi asked, not really wanting to but wanting to save her embarrassment.

JJ snorted. "I have a husband and a son. He doesn't have anything I haven't seen before. Hand me the pants, Dave." Apparently years of changing diapers and dressing a small child came in handy, because JJ got Reid out of his wet clothes and into the sweat pants under the blanket in a way that preserved his dignity. She slipped his arms into the jacket, zipped it up, and then snuggled up beside him before wrapping the blanket around them both.

"What're you doing?" Reid asked, suddenly focused again on her proximity.

"In order for a blanket to work, it has to radiate your body heat back to you," JJ explained. "Right now, I don't think you have any body heat to radiate, so I'm lending you mine. Rossi, get us to the hospital."

Reid stared at her in bewilderment as Rossi fastened his seatbelt and put the SUV in gear. As the warm air from the heater started working its way into the back seat, JJ felt her friend start to shiver violently. She rubbed his arms and hands gently, trying to get the blood flowing again. Wrapping her arms around him was akin to hugging an icicle, and she started to shiver herself as the heat from her body flowed into his.

Suddenly Reid sat bolt upright, pulling away from JJ's tender embrace. "M. . . Mor . . . Morg . . ." he stuttered, his teeth chattering as his body began to recover.

JJ pulled him back against her. "Morgan," she supplied. "Can you tell us where he is?" There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask: Where was Morgan? Was Deputy Nugent with him? Where was the SUV they were in? How did Reid end up out here all alone, miles from the last place they'd had contact with the men? But she figured all of that could wait until Reid was more coherent, if he could just tell them how to find Morgan.

Reid, however, seemed intent on telling the whole story, despite the shudders that were wracking his body and making speech nearly impossible. "W…w…we…wre….wre….wre..wrecked…th…the…c…c…car."

"Don't worry about that right now, Reid," Rossi interrupted. "Just tell us where they are, and we'll call Hotch to go get them."

JJ wasn't sure if Reid was shaking his head or if it was just a manifestation of his shivering until he spoke again. "N. . . No. I. . . I. . . I. . . ha. . . have . . . t. . . to. . . sh. . . show. . . . you. You . . . you'll . . . ne. . . ne. . . nev . . . never . . . fin. . . find . . . it."

"Spence, sweetie, I'm sure Hotch can find them if you tell us where they are," JJ soothed, running her fingers through the man's soaked hair. "We need to get you someplace warm and let them look at your shoulder."

Reid took a deep breath and forced himself to speak slowly and clearly. "The car will be covered w. . . with s. . . snow. I ha. . . have to sh . . . show you."

Looking across the frozen wasteland around them, Rossi realized that the younger man was right. If the SUV had gone off the road, chances were good that they'd never see it unless they knew exactly where to look. "All right, Reid. You can show us. Just give me some idea of where I'm going, and I'll call Hotch and tell him to meet us there."

"G. . . Go to the r. . . .ro . . . road that goes u. . . up to the camp," Reid instructed. "I. . . I can di. . . direct you fr. . . fr. . . from there."

Rossi stopped the SUV long enough to punch directions into the GPS and to call Hotch and tell him where to meet them. By the time he finished and got going again, Reid had slumped back against the seat.

"He's asleep," JJ whispered, trying not to disturb the exhausted man. "I'll wake him when we get there."

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Thirty minutes later the two SUVs were parked side by side at the intersection of the main highway and the road that led up to the camp. JJ insisted that everyone crowd into one vehicle because she didn't want Reid to have to get out in the cold to talk to the group. Hotch climbed into the front passenger seat, and Deputy Nugent slid into the back next to JJ, who was still wrapped in the blanket with Reid. JJ waited until they had slammed the doors before she started gently shaking the sleeping man, trying to rouse him. She called his name, quietly at first but with mounting urgency as Reid continued to sleep. After several minutes of trying she looked worriedly into the front seat. "He's not waking up," she told the two older agents.

Both men were half-turned so they could face the rear of the vehicle. "Let me try," Hotch suggested. He put his arm over the back of the seat and grabbed Reid's leg, shaking it firmly. "Reid, wake up," he demanded.

The deeper tone penetrated through the exhaustion, or maybe it was the authority in the team leader's voice. Whatever the case Reid stirred and blinked his eyes. "What?" he asked groggily, and then his eyes flew open wide as he took in his surroundings. "Oh, um, I guess I fell asleep," he admitted sheepishly.

"You think?" Rossi asked, not unkindly.

"Don't worry about it, Reid," Hotch instructed. "Can you tell us how to get to Morgan and Deputy Cherry?"

Reid shifted in his seat to look out the window, muffling a groan as he moved his injured shoulder. Fortunately, the snow had finally slowed down enough for him to read the highway sign and get his bearings despite the encroaching darkness of night. "Okay, 3.2 miles up this road there's a turn-off with a cattle gate."

"That's the back road to the Girl Scout camp," Shawnda Nugent supplied.

"The Girl Scout camp where our Unsub killed himself?" Hotch asked.

Nugent nodded. "Yes. Chief Lahr and Agent Callahan would have gone up the front way, so they wouldn't have seen the SUV by the side of the road."

"Wouldn't have seen it anyway," Reid interrupted. "We went over an embankment. Get up to the road and I'll show you where they are. But you're going to need tools to get them out, and Cherry, at least, was badly hurt. He'll need a backboard and stretcher, maybe climbing equipment to get him back up to the road."

Hotch checked his phone, noting that they were once again out of cell range. "Rossi, you and Deputy Nugent take the other SUV and head back toward town. Get the fire department or Search and Rescue, whoever they have to handle this sort of thing,"

"We pretty much have us," Nugent informed them. "The Search and Rescue team comes out of Asheville, and there's no way they'll get here before morning. Our fire department is volunteer except for the Fire Chief, and she had a baby four days ago. I'll get some of the guys to grab their equipment and come help; Jim Beasley is the best mountaineer we have, and I'm sure he'll be able to figure something out. We'll get him and the others up to you as fast as we can."

She and Rossi climbed into the other SUV and drove away while Hotch slid into the driver's seat. It took nearly half an hour to drive the three miles in the snow, and Hotch would have missed the turnoff entirely if Reid hadn't warned him right before they reached it. After they had turned and driven through the gate that JJ jumped out and opened, Reid started muttering to himself as they started slowly up the winding lane.

"What are you doing?" JJ asked him curiously.

"I'm repeating the conversation we had after that turnoff last time," Reid explained. "I can't recognize any landmarks in all this snow, but I should be able to judge approximately where we went off the road by what we were saying at the time."

Reid continued his mumbling as Hotch drove up the road. The further they went the louder he got as he remembered the argument with Cherry word for word. Finally, he said, ""What the hell? What are you doing? I am not letting you go up there." His voice remained dispassionate and his eyes unfocused until he had said that last line. Then he seemed to come back into this vehicle, instead of the one inside his mind. "About five more yards ahead," he informed Hotch. "This is where Cherry hit the wheel and we started sliding.

Hotch brought the SUV to a halt, and Reid reached across himself with his good arm to open his door. "Reid, wait," JJ cried, pulling him back. "You're not even wearing any shoes. You stay in here where it's warm. Hotch and I will find them."

A big part of Reid wanted to argue, but he knew that she was right. He settled back against the seat and watched through the window as Hotch and JJ walked to the side of the road and looked down. After a few minutes JJ returned to the SUV and popped the hatchback. "What are you doing?" Reid asked as she started rummaging.

"Looking for this," she answered, pulling out a coil of climber's rope. "It's not that far down, only fifteen feet or so, but it's steep. Hotch is going to lower me down so hopefully I can find the car before the rescue personnel get here."

"You can't see it at all?" he inquired worriedly. "Maybe I got the wrong spot."

JJ swung the rope up over her shoulder. "Reid, I have total faith in you. If you say this is where it happened, then this is where it happened. I'm going to go down and find them, and then as soon as Rossi gets here with the cavalry we'll take you to the hospital."

"JJ, I'm fine."

JJ didn't even bother to respond. She slammed the hatch shut and carried the rope to where Hotch waited by the side of the road. Five minutes later she had one end tied around her waist and was stepping backward into nothingness while the senior agent slowly played out the rest. Reid chewed thoughtlessly on his lower lip as he watched her disappear from sight.


	17. I did it for nothing

Shivering violently, Derek Morgan pressed the light button on his watch for what felt like the hundredth time. Only fifteen minutes had passed since the last time he'd pushed it, but it had seemed like hours. Since the snow had covered it, the SUV was now completely dark, and it felt suspiciously like time had stopped.

"How long?" Cherry asked weakly, having seen the green glow in the darkness.

"Not long now," Morgan assured him, although he had long ceased believing himself. "Reid and the others should be here any minute to dig us out."

"Were you always such a rotten liar?" inquired the deputy.

"If you mean have I always lied a lot, yeah, pretty much," Morgan admitted. "If you mean was I always bad at it, it seems like I got away with a lot more things as a kid than I ever did as an adult."

"Had your parents fooled?"

"No, not my Mom. She always knew; still does, for that matter. My dad was another story. He liked to give me the benefit of the doubt. Although, now that I think about it, he probably knew too. He just preferred letting keep on lying until I got in so deep I couldn't keep everything straight, and I ended up telling on myself."

"Sounds nice. I miss my parents."

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."

"People die. It just sucks, you know. But if your mom and dad always caught you, why did you say you got away with more as a kid?"

"Because my girlfriend, she's a whole 'nother story. I don't think I've told her a single thing that was even vaguely untrue that she hasn't called me out on right away. One time I tried telling her I was late for a date because I'd been working. And I had been working, but I'd also been messing around at work a little, so I ended having to stay longer to finish. I didn't even get the words out of my mouth before she said, 'And I already talked to Garcia' – that's our technical analyst – 'so I know why you had to work late, so don't even try to blame it on your boss.'"

Cherry laughed briefly, but the laughter led to a coughing fit which then led to a groan of pain. "Ah, man, my head. Tell me about your girlfriend, Morgan."

The FBI agent knew the deputy probably didn't care about his personal life; he just wanted something to take his mind off the situation they were in. Nevertheless, his girl was a topic about which he could talk for hours. If Cherry needed a story to soothe him, Morgan was happy to oblige.

"Her name is Savannah Hayes. She's a doctor at Bethesda General. We've been living next door to each other for over a year, but we didn't really talk to each other until her air conditioning went out last summer and the landlord claimed he couldn't get the part he needed for at least two weeks. . . ."

After a few more minutes of talking, Morgan realized Cherry has again drifted off into either sleep or unconsciousness. He debated briefly trying to wake him, but Morgan was feeling terribly sleepy himself. "I'll take a nap," he decided aloud, unaware of the weakness that had crept into his voice. "That will pass some time, and maybe Reid will . . . ." The rest of the sentence went unsaid.

Just as he closed his eyes a fleeting thought entered his mind. He tried to grab hold of it, but he was so tired he let it drift away, unaware that the notion might be vitally important. He sank into a dream where Reid was explaining how long two people could survive in a car completely covered in snow before they suffocated from insufficient oxygen.

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Aaron Hotchner settled firmly back, his feet planted in the snow as he slowly lowered Jennifer "JJ" Jareau down the embankment to the ground fifteen feet below. She was using her legs as a fulcrum against the rocky wall, walking down as he fed out the rope tied around her waist. He had tried to convince her to wait for more backup, pointing out that while he was sure he could lower her with no problem, he wasn't at all certain he would have the strength necessary to pull her back up again should she need to re-ascend. She, on the other hand, had been adamant that someone needed to get down to Morgan and Deputy Cherry as quickly as possible. His assertion that it had already been hours and only strengthened her resolve that they should not be left any longer than necessary. "I'll find the car and get the snow cleared away before Rossi brings the rescue team," she declared, "and then all they'll have to do will be to get them out." Hotch had acquiesced only because he had the feeling that she was going to get down one way or another, and he preferred having her tethered to him with a rope over her free-climbing the icy rock. Now, however, he was questioning his judgement in allowing her to try as he felt his feet slipping. Granted, even if he dropped her, she would only be falling ten feet or so, but who knew what lay under the snow? A ten-foot fall onto a protruding branch or into a pile of loose rocks could cause significant damage.

Suddenly he felt the weight pulling him toward the edge of the cliff lessen. For a moment he thought JJ had fallen, or maybe reached an outcropping of rock on which to rest, but he quickly realized that the change in force was coming from behind him, not in front. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Reid had slipped out of the car without him hearing and grabbed hold of the length of rope coiled on the ground, taking a bit of the burden off of Hotch and allowing him to find firm footing again. Together they lowered JJ hand-over-hand until she called out that she'd reached the bottom. Only then did Hotch turn to the younger agent.

"Reid, what are you doing?" The slender man was dressed in only an oversized, stained sweat suit. He had left his coat in the car and, Hotch noticed, looking him over, his shoes as well. "You're barefoot!" the team leader exclaimed incredulously, seeing one red and black striped foot and one blue with penguins, both soaking in the frozen slush.

"I put m' socks back on." Reid seemed to think his explanation sufficient as he stumbled forward to look over the edge. "I didn't wan' you to drop her."

Hotch sometimes felt like an exasperated father when he was dealing with the younger members of his team. "I wasn't going to drop her," he said patiently, "and you need to get back in the car."

Reid didn't even look at him. "I'm fine." He raised his voice and called out, "JJ! Look further. Not there."

Reaching out and grabbing Reid's arm, Hotch tried again. "You need to get back in the car, Reid."

This time the younger man did at least turn toward him. "Why? Wanna help JJ."

Hotch sighed deeply. "Reid, what are the symptoms of hypothermia?"

Obediently Reid shared the textbook answer. "Shivering, 'though as hypothermia worsens, shiverin' stops, clumsiness or lack of coor… coordination, slurred speech or mumbling, confusion and poor decision-making, a lack of concern about one's condition . . . "

"Exactly," Hotch stopped him.

"Wha'?"

"Reid, I know you don't realize it, but you've stopped shivering, you're stumbling, the things you're shouting to JJ barely make any sense, and you're standing here in the snow in your stocking feet. Now get back in the car. Now. That's an order."

Reid stood staring at Hotch for another minute, and the older man thought he was going to refuse, when Reid took a step forward and his legs crumpled underneath him. Hotch managed to catch him before he collapsed completely. Unfortunately, he grabbed onto Reid's left arm, not realizing the young man was injured, and he felt the limb slide out of the socket as Reid went down. Reid cried out once in pain, but then lost consciousness completely, going limp in Hotch's arms. He picked up the lanky man bridal style, marveling at how little Reid seemed to weigh. Fortunately Reid had left the back door open when he exited the SUV, and Hotch was able to lay him down across the back seat and cover him with the blanket again. There was nothing he could do about the dislocated shoulder now. Pressing two fingers to Reid's neck, he noted that he pulse was shallow but steady before slamming the door shut and returning to the edge of the road.

"Hotch, what happened?" JJ shouted anxiously from below.

"I just convinced Reid to get back in the car," he replied, seeing no reason to worry her when there was nothing she could do. "Any sign of the others?"

"Still looking." JJ walked slowly back and forth across the base of the cliff, using her feet to kick gently against every mound of snow rising above the ground, searching for the missing vehicle. A couple of times she stopped and dug with her hands, but each time she discovered a boulder instead of the SUV. It was slow work, each step a struggle through the drifts which reached as high as her hips in places. Finally, on her fourth pass, her foot clanked against something that seemed significantly metallic, and she dropped to her knees to dig again. This time her hands brushed snow off of a dark, smooth finish, totally unlike the rocks all around them. "I found it!" she shouted up to Hotch. "It's completely buried. See if there's a shovel, or something I can use as a shovel, in the car. This is going to take days with just my hands."

Nevertheless, she continued scooping away the snow until she heard Hotch shout and saw him throw something down. He hadn't been able to find a shovel, but he had unearthed a small plastic trashcan. JJ retrieved it from where Hotch had thrown it and began using it to excavate the buried SUV. Slowly she managed to scrape away the white powder, which mercifully had not frozen solid but remained fluffy and light. Finally, after several minutes of digging, she unearthed the edge of what she imagined was the windshield, although it could have been the back window. A couple of scoops more and she could bang on the glass with her gloved hand. Much to her consternation though, no one banged back.

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AN: I feel like the ongoing rescue is taking forever, but I also hate it when characters in a show are in a situation and then ten seconds later they're magically out of it.


	18. In the still of the night

JJ banged hard against the windshield a second time. She thought maybe she saw something move against the glass from the other side, but through the small opening she'd made in the snow it was hard to tell. She scraped away another trashcanful and pressed her face against the glass, cupping her hands around her eyes to block the glare. Inside was nearly pitch black, but she was sure she saw a hand swipe toward her before it dropped from her sight again. "Hotch!" she called, turning her face up toward the top of the cliff. "I need a flashlight."

While she waited for Hotch to find the needed tool, JJ continued to scoop snow with her improvised shovel, clearing a foot-wide opening before she heard the team leader call her name. "JJ, catch."

JJ stopped her work and walked closer to the embankment. The sun had almost set, and she couldn't really see the man standing up above her. "Turn the flashlight on, so I can see what I'm catching," she requested. Above her the beam of light shown out before sailing out and down toward her, where she easily caught it. She slogged back to the buried SUV and shown the light through the opening she had cleared. Morgan's face loomed into view. His eyes were half-closed, but his head turned sluggishly toward her. One hand rose as if to reach through the glass to her, then dropped back limply onto Morgan's lap. JJ scanned as much of his body as she could see through the windshield, trying to find what injuries were making him so weak. It wasn't until he began to cough ineffectually that she realized the problem. "Hotch!" she called again, much more frantically this time. "I need something to break the windshield! Hurry! I think he's suffocating!"

What seemed an eternity later, although it was really only moments, Hotch shouted, "Stand back! I don't want to hit you." A dark object sailed down from the top of the embankment and buried itself in the snow. JJ trained the light on it as it fell so was able to find the spot where it landed easily enough. Reaching into the hole it had created, she grasped a wooden handle and pulled out a carpenter's hammer. She followed the now-worn path in the snow back to the SUV, raised the hammer, and brought it down with all her might on the windshield.

The hammer bounced off the surface, narrowly missing hitting her in the face. The glass had cracked in a spider-web but not shattered as she had expected. "Safety-glass," she reminded herself, raising the hammer again. The second blow cracked it even more, and she turned the hammer over and used the claw end for the third strike. Finally the hammer went through, and she used the claw to pull pieces of it away from the hole she had created. On the plus side, she didn't have to worry so much about cutting herself as she dropped the hammer and used her gloved hand to widen the gap. "Derek," she called as she worked, "can you hear me? Hold on." Shining the flashlight she still held in her left hand, she could tell that her friend had fallen completely unconscious. "Don't you dare give up on me now," she warned as she continued to pull away tiny pieces by the handful. "I'll kick your ass if you die now."

Finally she had an opening big enough to get her arm and head through. Pressing two fingers to the side of Morgan's neck, she was relieved to feel a pulse beating quickly but steadily. Suddenly a hand grabbed her shoulder, and she screamed and jumped, bringing more of the safety glass raining down around her.

"Sorry," said a deep voice with a strong Southern accent. "Didn't mean to startle ya. Not sure how you managed not to hear us comin'." The world outside of the wrecked SUV abruptly snapped back into JJ's awareness, and she realized there was a siren blaring above her, strong lights shining down on her, and a half-dozen people gathering around her, in addition to the tall black man who was brushing bits and pieces off her coat and out of her hair.

"Wow," JJ muttered, half to herself. "I don't know how I missed you, either."

"You're bleedin'," the man noticed, touching one gloved hand gently to her cheek. JJ put her un-gloved hand up and brought it away with a spot of red on it.

"Not much," she assured him. "I'm SSA Jennifer Jareau," she introduced herself belatedly.

The man laughed. "I figured as much, since your boss said that's who was down here. James Beasley. My friends call me Dr. Jay, and no, I don't play basketball. Now come over here and let me look at that cut so the rest of these folks can see about gettin' to your friends." He led her away from the SUV, where a group was quickly rigging up more lights and a pneumatic jack.

"It's fine," JJ proclaimed, embarrassed by the attention.

Dr. Jay ignored her protests. "Come on, let me make sure. There's not much I can do to treat them until they get the windshield out or the door open anyway."

"So you're a real doctor?"

"Got a medical degree from UNC that says so." Jay opened a metal box which had been lowered down and took out a tube and some gauze. "I'll just clean that up real fast and you can go on your way." He squeezed some ointment onto the gauze and started gently dabbing at her cheek. As he worked he kept up a running commentary, something JJ suspected he was not even aware of doing. "There's no glass in it, so that's good. Really isn't more than a scratch, but it might need a few stiches, and we wouldn't want it gettin' infected. What was your boss thinkin', lettin' a little ole pregnant gal come down here all by herself anyway?"

"Excuse me," JJ interrupted him, as he finished his cleaning and opened up a Band-Aid. "I'm not pregnant."

"You're not?" The man seemed surprised, but whether it was at her announcement or at the fact that she had responded to the words he didn't seem to realize he had said aloud JJ wasn't sure. "Oh. Sorry. My mistake. There you go." He finished sticking the bandage on her face. "All better. We hung a rope ladder, so gettin' back up shouldn't be any problem."

"But I want to help get them out," JJ protested.

"Ma'am, I'm sure you are an excellent FBI agent, and if I needed someone to shoot a bad guy or make an arrest, ya'll are the first people I'd call. But, as we told your boss and the other agent up top, this is our specialty, and, no offense, but we're gonna work faster without havin' ya'll in our way."

JJ wanted to object further, but she could see the validity of what the doctor had said. "Right," she agreed reluctantly. "I'm going. Thank you for your help."

"Any time," he smiled. "I promise, we will let ya'll know as soon as we've got them out and safe."

"Thank you," JJ repeated. She walked to the hanging rope ladder and quickly climbed back to the top, where Hotch and Rossi were waiting.

"There you are," Rossi proclaimed, helping her climb off the ladder. "I was starting to think they'd decided to let you help down there after all."

"No such luck," JJ admitted. "At least I know Morgan's alive, but that's all I know. I guess we're just waiting up here for news."

"Actually," Hotch said, "I want you and Rossi to go back to town and take Reid to the hospital."

"Spence," JJ exclaimed. "I forgot all about him. Is he okay?"

"He helped me lower you down, but after that he wasn't looking so good. He's lying in the back of the SUV." Hotch pointed toward the vehicle he and JJ had come in. "Be careful of his shoulder; I think he dislocated it again."

JJ headed toward the back door to check on Reid while Rossi had a few more words with Hotch. "You sure you don't want to come with us?"

The younger man shook his head. "No, I'm going to wait here until they bring Morgan up. I'll ride in with him. We'll meet you at St. Luke's Hospital over in Columbus, the same place where JJ took Beth Carregan."

"At least sit in one of the cars," Rossi suggested before walking away. "There's no reason to freeze while you wait." But he noticed as he climbed into the driver's seat that Hotch had not left his vigil by the side of the road.

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Three hours later Hotch breathed a sigh of relief as he strode into the tiny waiting room at St. Luke's Hospital, made all the smaller by the collection of agents gathered there. The unit leader felt some of the tension go out of his shoulders as he took a quick roll call in his head and logged everyone present. Kate had brought their go bags from the hotel, so Rossi and JJ were looking dryer and warmer than the last time he'd seen them. He noted a larger bandage on JJ's cheek – four stitches, Dave had told him when he'd finally been able to reach them by telephone. Dave was on the telephone again now, as were JJ and Kate. Hotch could surmise from their relaxed expressions that each was speaking with family or friends, probably reassuring everyone that things had turned out okay. Reid was settled into a room, sleeping off the effects of anesthesia because they'd had to operate on his shoulder after all, but thankfully only arthroscopically. Morgan would be joining him as soon as he'd been checked out by the ER doctors, despite his loud protestations on the ambulance ride over that he was perfectly fine and did not need any medical attention. Hotch and the EMT's had pointedly ignored his objections, although Hotch had silently considered it a good sign that Morgan had the lung power to argue. Apparently JJ had gotten fresh air into him in time to avoid any major damage.

Deputy Cherry had not been so lucky. By the time the rescue crew had gotten into the back of the wrecked SUV, his body had started to turn cold. Whether he had died of his injuries, the lack of oxygen, hypothermia, or a mix of all three would probably never be known. Hotch figured it probably didn't really matter. Morgan had told his rescuers the story of Cherry's attempts to stop them from capturing his brother during the two hours it took to pry him from the car, and while the loss of the young deputy was to be regretted, there really was no one to blame but himself.

Hotch cleared his throat, bringing three sets of eyes up to meet his. His agents quickly ended their phone calls and looked at him expectantly. "They should have Morgan in a room in the next half hour or so," he informed them. "We'll wait until he's settled, check once more on him and Reid, and then I suggest we all go back to the hotel and call it a night." He put up his hand to stop the expected protests before they could start. "Morgan's going to be fine, but he's clearly exhausted, and I fully expect he's going to fall asleep as soon as they get him in a bed. He and Reid will be sharing a room, so on the off chance one of them wakes up, he won't be alone. It's been an abysmally long and cold day, and we all need to get a good night's sleep in a real bed, not sitting in a chair beside two grown men who won't even know we're there. We'll come back in the morning."

Despite their wish to stay close to their friends now that they had found them, the others had to agree that Hotch was right. Sure enough, when they peeked in after Morgan had been moved into Reid's room, they found both men fast asleep.

Hotch did have one question for the doctor before they left. "I notice Dr. Reid has an oxygen mask," he noted. "Is he experiencing breathing problems?" Ever since Reid's run-in with Anthrax, Hotch worried that his lung capacity might be diminished.

The doctor on-call, who looked like he was about twenty years old and hadn't slept in a week, checked Reid's chart quickly, wanting to make sure he gave the FBI agents the correct information. "His lungs are fine," he assured the team. "Although he does have a couple of cracked ribs, they're not interfering with his breathing. The oxygen is warmed. It will help his body regain its normal temperature with a minimum of trauma to his system."

"But he's going to be okay, isn't he?" JJ asked anxiously, even though they had been assured of that very fact several times already.

"He'll be just fine," the doctor promised. "I imagine they'll both be ready to go home in the morning."

"I hope we can get home," Rossi commented, holding out his phone for them to see. "You're not going to believe it, but it's supposed to snow again before sunrise."

All four of them groaned. "And to think I used to like the snow," Kate voiced all their sentiments.

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AN: OMG, nothing at all happened in this chapter. I seriously considered just jumping to the end, but a couple of people said they like the slower pace, so here you are. I'm thinking one, maybe two more chapters, and this story will be done.


	19. When I'm wrong I say I'm wrong

AN: On the minus side, this last chapter to the story took me forever to write. On the plus side, it's extra long. Enjoy.

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Late the next morning Derek Morgan was sitting on the bed in the hotel room he was sharing with Reid, leaning against the headboard and explaining to Savannah that all flights were canceled out of Asheville and he had no idea when the team would be returning to Quantico. "They released us both this morning, baby. I promise, we're both fine. We're just stuck here until the snow clears out." He listened for a minute and then continued. "No, I promise, no ill effects at all. Reid's going to have his arm in a sling for a couple of weeks, but already he's more annoyed by it than in pain." He paused again. "No, you can't talk to him. He's taking the world's longest shower. He says the one thing he really likes about staying in hotels is that they never run out of hot water." Morgan broke off when he heard a rapping at the door. "Gotta, go, baby, someone's at the door. I'll let you know when we're actually able to take off, and I promise I'll make it up to you when we get back. Love you too." Morgan clicked the button to end the call and eased his way off the bed to go answer the door. Despite his assurances to Savannah, he was definitely stiff and sore from the day before, and he moved a bit more slowly than usual. A second knock came before he got all the way there. "Coming, coming," he called before swinging the door open.

JJ stood there, dressed down in a pair of jeans and a "Visit Lake Lure" sweatshirt. "I've been texting you for the past half-hour," she proclaimed, holding up the cell phone in her hand.

Morgan looked at his own phone in surprise and noticed that there were, indeed, five texts from the petite blond. "Sorry," he quickly apologized. "I was talking to Savannah and I didn't hear the ping. What's up?"

"Hotch wants everyone to meet downstairs for lunch," JJ explained. "He's hoping if we all compare notes on what we found out yesterday we still might be able to figure out what Cherry did with the rest of the bodies. Lahr and Nugent are bringing pizza from the diner since it's apparently the only place in town that's still open."

Morgan nodded, already starting to close the door. "Let me get Reid out of the shower and we'll be right down. He's probably turned into a raisin by now."

Fifteen minutes later the two men joined the rest of their team in front of a blazing fire in the lobby of the inn. Chairs had been pulled into a loose semi-circle around a couple of coffee tables laden with pizza boxes and sodas. Morgan sat in one of the empty chairs at the top of the semi-circle and eagerly grabbed a slice of pepperoni – the so-called breakfast that morning at the hospital had been far below his usual standards, and he was starving. He was three bites in before he realized that Reid was still standing.

"Have a seat, Pretty Boy," he invited, indicating the chair beside him with his elbow since one hand was full of pizza and the other was holding a drink.

Reid looked at the chair for a minute, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Then, seeming to make up his mind about something, he took hold of the back of the chair with his good hand and dragged it over to sit beside Kate. She looked at him with puzzlement. "Not that I mind sitting beside you, but you're going to burn up," she pointed out. "I was already getting too hot." Indeed, Reid had placed his chair directly in front of the fireplace with his back toward the flames.

"I'm good," he insisted, picking up a can and attempting to hold the drink with his left hand while opening it with his right. Kate took the soda from him and popped the top while JJ put a slice of pizza on a plate and placed it on the table in front of him.

"It's a good thing we have a couple of mothers in the group," Rossi commented wryly. Reid looked confused at the declaration but apparently decided it wasn't worth trying to figure out. Rossi noticed that Morgan was also looking confused, but more because Reid had chosen not to sit beside him than because of Rossi's comment.

"Now that everyone's here, let's get started," Hotch suggested. "Since none of us was privy to all the information learned yesterday, I'm hoping that putting it all together will give us some insight into Frankie Cherry's mindset and help us figure out what he did with the bodies of his victims. I'll start."

Hotch, Morgan and Rossi spoke for their groups from the day before, with the others adding information they thought was relevant as the stories unfolded. Much to their surprise their resident genius stayed silent the entire time, even when Morgan was talking about their part of the investigation. By the time Rossi had finished his section with JJ and Shawnda Nugent chiming in as necessary, Reid was sitting with his eyes closed, and the others all secretly wondered if he had fallen asleep. Kate was reaching out to inconspicuously tap his arm when he opened his eyes again and stated plainly, "They're at the farm."

For a minute everyone spoke at once, questioning his reasoning and his conclusions, until Hotch quieted everyone down again. "Reid, explain," he requested shortly.

Reid stood up and began pacing in front of the fireplace. He gesticulated with his good hand, while the one in the sling clenched and unclenched. Apparently the enforced immobility of it caused the young man some degree of anxiety which was translated into even more rambling and gesturing with his other hand than usual.

"It's obvious that they couldn't be in the inn because there's no where that they could be. Hotch and the others examined the place literally from top to bottom, and if they were buried under the floorboards or in a crawl space or something of that nature then someone would have noticed the odor of decomposition at some point during the past ten years, because even if you sprinkle the bodies with lime the smell would become unmistakable after a while, especially during the summer when temperatures in Lake Lure can reach in excess of ninety degrees Fahrenheit. And they can't be at the girl scout camp, I mean the camp that's actually used, for the same reason, so the bodies have to be someplace where people wouldn't notice. Even the abandoned camp is visited by tourists on a regular basis. And, yes, I suppose he could have buried them, but that doesn't really fit with his psychological profile at all. He wanted those bodies, or at least he wanted the people, for something specific, and they wouldn't do him any good buried in the ground. So the farm is the only logical place." Reid stopped and looked around the group as if noticing them for the first time. "You see?" he asked.

The group looked at one another. The team members had bemused smiles, while Lahr and Nugent simply looked bewildered. "Not really," Rossi admitted for all of them. "We were at the farm, Reid, and we didn't see any sign of the bodies."

"You didn't look in the barn," Reid stated matter-of-factly. "That's where they're going to be."

"He's right," JJ realized. "We found Beth Carrigan and saw the Unsub leaving before we actually looked in the buildings.

"Are the roads out to the farm passable at this point?" Hotch asked Sheriff Lahr.

"They're not right now," Lahr replied, "but they will be as soon as I call Jay Mungin to take his snowplow out that way. We should be able to get out there in a couple of hours."

Kate spoke up. "Unless you really want me for some reason, Hotch, I'd just as soon stay here. I'm tough, but a certain someone" – she pointed toward her belly – "has had enough of the cold weather for a while."

The team leader flashed a rare Hotch smile. "I think that can be arranged," he agreed. "It's not like we're going to need the whole team."

"I'm in," Morgan said at the same time as Rossi.

"I can go," JJ offered.

Hotch waved her off. "I think the three of us will be sufficient, along with the Sheriff. But what about you, Reid? You figured it out. Do you want to see if you're right?"

Reid looked at him like he had suggested gravity was a myth. "I know I'm right," he answered matter-of-factly. "Besides, I have some things I need to do here."

Two and a half hours later Hotch had emailed the rest of the team pictures of what they had found inside the barn, right where Reid had said they would be. Deputy Nugent, who had remained at the inn with the rest of them over the course of the afternoon, recognized the scene right away. "It's the talent show," she exclaimed, examining the pictures on JJ's tablet, "from the end of the movie."

Indeed, Frankie Nugent had apparently taken great care to outfit the old barn to match the climactic scene. There was a stage at one end, with tables and chairs arranged in front of it. At each table sat bodies in various stages of decomposition, some relatively fresh, others completely skeletonized.

"There are the dancers," Kate commented, pointing out the bodies arranged backstage.

"Johnny always does the last dance of the season," JJ murmured. "I guess he was just waiting for his perfect Baby to dance it with him."

"Doesn't anybody else find this extremely creepy?" Shawnda Nugent asked.

Kate laughed. "Yeah, of course we do. I guess we're just kinda used to it."

"Maybe I don't want to go into the FBI after all," the young deputy considered.

"I think you'd be great," JJ said, shutting the window on her tablet and cutting off the gruesome images. "Think of all the people we help. And now all those families will get to bury their loved ones."

"Maybe," conceded Shawnda. "I'll think about it. I couldn't leave right now anyway, with the Sheriff already a man down. That wouldn't be fair."

"Speaking of a man down," Kate looked around, "where's Reid? I know he's not looking at this email on his own. He doesn't do computers," she told Nugent.

"It's not that he can't," JJ explained quickly. "He just generally chooses not to. I think he said he was going to take a shower before the others get back."

Kate shook her head and laughed. "He was that sure he was right. He didn't even wait to see. I wonder what it's like sometimes to live inside that head of his."

"Trust me, you don't want to know," JJ stated emphatically.

Four hours later found the team once again gathered in front of the fireplace in the lobby eating now-cold pizza. Lahr and Nugent had gone back to the sheriff's office to deal with finding and notifying next-of-kin, and the rest were waiting for Hotch to finish a phone call he was on. Finally he pressed the end button and addressed his team. "Barring unforeseen circumstances, the runways should be clear by ten o'clock tomorrow morning." This news was met with cheers and a flurry of beeps as most of the assembled group started dialing their own cell phones to share the good news with their loved ones, stepping away from the group in order to be able to speak privately. Only Rossi and Reid remained by the fire.

"I'll bet they've got some cards around here someplace. Might be a good night for poker," Rossi suggested to his younger companion.

"Only if you want to lose," Reid replied, half-seriously.

"You are always so sure of yourself," Rossi admonished.

Reid smiled mischievously. "That's because I always win. You find some cards. I'm going to go grab a quick shower. I'll meet you back down here in an hour."

Rossi cocked his head to one side as he watched Reid head up the stairs. "What's up?" Morgan asked him, sitting beside the older man. "You've got your profiling face on."

Rossi shook his head. "No Savannah?" he asked, pointing to the cell phone Morgan still held in his hand.

"I got to tell her we'll be coming home tomorrow, but she was at work, so she couldn't talk long," Morgan explained.

"Well, Reid and I are planning to play poker in an hour."

Morgan chuckled. "I'll play, but you know he'll beat us, Rossi. The kid cheats."

"Who cheats?" Kate asked, coming up behind them.

"Reid, at poker," Morgan told her.

"Are we playing poker?" Kate asked eagerly. "Count me in."

"Sounds like it's going to be a real game," Rossi said, getting up from his chair. "I guess I'd better go find some cards. Everyone meet back here at eight."

In the end the whole team gathered for the card game. The inn did have a couple of decks of cards but no poker chips, so JJ and Morgan gathered everyone's change together and hit all the vending machines in the place, returning with potato chips, pretzels and Oreo cookies to use as markers. After several hours Reid had, indeed, scraped most of the food to his side of the table. Hotch, Kate and JJ had gone up to bed, but Rossi seemed determined to beat the young genius, and Morgan was amused to watch him try.

"Last hand," Reid finally declared. "I'm exhausted."

"Come on," demanded Rossi, "you've got to give me a chance to win my stake back."

"Your stake is five potato chips, ten pretzels, and an Oreo," Reid pointed out. "I don't think it's going to bankrupt you to let it go."

Rossi eyed him suspiciously. "How do you do it, Reid?"

"Do what?"

"Win three-fourths of the hands!"

"Actually, I've won seventy-nine point two percent of them tonight," Reid replied. "And I'm just that good a card player. I did grow up in Vegas."

Morgan was dealing out the last hand of cards. "Don't look at me!" he requested as Rossi shifted his gaze. "You know he's not double-dealing, because I've been dealing for him all night. I don't know how he does it."

Rossi did managed to win the hand with a full house, jacks over nines, but he had a sneaking suspicion Reid had let him win just to shut him up. "Normally I would help clean up," Reid said, pushing back from the table, "but I'm pretty useless with just one hand. You guys mind if I go grab a shower before Morgan comes up and hogs the bathroom?"

"You should talk," Morgan snorted, starting to put the cards back into their box. "Go ahead, Pretty Boy. I'll be up in a minute."

Again Rossi watched him cross the room and go up the stairs. "Morgan, let me ask you a question."

"Shoot."

"How many showers has Reid taken today?"

Morgan had grabbed a trash can and was busy scraping the remains of the "poker chips" into it. He stopped and looked at Rossi in confusion. "I don't know. He took one this morning before lunch, and I guess he's taking one now."

"And he took one before the game, and JJ mentioned that he took one while we were gone to the farm. Doesn't four showers in one day seems a little excessive?"

Morgan sat back down beside Rossi, cleaning forgotten for the moment. "Yeah, it does. What the hell?"

"Did he talk to you at all about what happened yesterday?" Rossi asked.

Morgan shook his head. "Not really. I mean, this morning I told him that Frankie Cherry had committed suicide, and about how I got rescued, but we didn't really talk about it."

"Do you think he feels guilty about David Cherry dying?"

Starting to clear off the table again, Morgan thought back over the day before. "Why should he? He did everything he could to save the man. Hell, he nearly died going for help. And it's not like Cherry didn't get himself into the situation in the first place."

"I know that and you know that," Rossi said, moving chairs back into their places. "And, intellectually, Reid probably even knows that. But can you think of any other explanation for four showers when he's done absolutely nothing to get dirty?"

"Not really," Morgan admitted again. "So you're thinking it's some sort of Lady Macbeth guilt complex? But why? I mean, Reid has had to actually kill Unsubs before, and he's dealt with it okay. Cherry was just, I don't know, bad luck."

"Just talk to him," Rossi suggested. "Make sure he's okay."

"Yeah, okay Rossi, I will."

Twenty minutes later Morgan was almost to the point of banging on the bathroom door and demanding Reid end another marathon shower session when he finally heard the water cut off in the other room. When Reid came in dressed for bed and drying his hair with a towel, Morgan had a muted football game playing on the television and was nonchalantly leaning against his headboard again. He used the remote to key off the game and asked the younger man, "Feeling better?" as casually as he could.

Reid visibly startled. "Oh! I didn't realize you were up here yet. Did I take too long? Sorry. You can have the bathroom now."

"Nah, I'm good. But I did want to ask you a question."

Reid sat down on the edge of his own bed and started taking out his contacts. "What?"

Now that the moment was at hand, Morgan wasn't sure how to phrase the question. He knew how private Reid was, and if he was suffering some sort of guilt complex chances were that he wouldn't just admit it outright, no matter how Morgan asked him. The older man decided to start with symptoms instead of cause. "You sure spent a lot of time in the shower today."

"Did I? I said I was sorry. Luckily the inn has plenty of hot water, so you can take one now if you want." Reid put his glasses on and started pulling down the covers, apparently considering the matter closed.

Morgan stood up and put out a hand to stop him. "No, I don't meant that. I'm not upset that you were in there so long."

Reid blinked at Morgan, confusion written on his face. "Then what? Look, Morgan, if you don't get to the point soon, I'm going to have to go back in there and take another shower, and my skin is really starting to dry out, so I'd rather not."

"See? There. You admit it."

"Admit what?"

"Reid, you've taken like four showers already today. And downstairs, you wouldn't sit beside me."

The young profiler bit his bottom lip, a sure sign that something was bothering him. "Derek, it wasn't that I didn't want to sit beside you. And, I'll admit, four showers is a little excessive. Maybe it is completely psychosomatic, but what's it hurting, really, if it helps me?" Reid turned away and started again to climb into bed, but Morgan was having none of it.

"Reid, we need to talk about this. You know this isn't healthy."

Dressed in pajamas and rolling his eyes in exasperation, Reid looked more like a teenager than an experienced profiler. "Seriously? They're just showers, Morgan."

"But that's just it. They're not JUST showers. They're symptoms of a deeper problem."

Reid had had just about enough. "What deeper problem? What are you talking about?"

Suddenly Morgan wished he had asked Rossi to confront Reid with him, or one of the girls, or even Hotch. Apparently his best friend was determined to deny that there was anything wrong, and Morgan wasn't sure that he was going to be able to get him to open up and expunge the terrible guilt he was obviously feeling. Drawing Reid down with him, the dark-skinned man sat on the edge of the bed again. He kept his hand on Reid's arm as a gesture of support while he attempted to address the issue head-on.

"Look, Reid . . . Spencer. . . you know that you did everything you could to get help to Deputy Cherry and me as quickly as you could, right?"

"Yeah?" The word was drawn out into a question instead of a statement, the unspoken rest of the sentence being something like, "Why are you asking me this?"

"And Cherry, I mean, I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but he caused the car accident in the first place."

"Uh-huh." Reid was starting to look at Morgan like he was speaking a foreign language.

"So you have absolutely no reason to feel guilty about him dying."

"Right." Reid waited, wondering when Morgan was going to get to the point.

Meanwhile, Morgan thought he had already gotten there. He sat, looking at his friend, waiting for some reaction: admissions of guilt, self-recrimination, possibly even tears. Instead, Reid just continued looking at him, puzzlement on his face.

For several minutes neither of them said anything else. It was Reid who finally broke the silence. "Okay, then. Good talk, Morgan. Can I go to bed now? Because, seriously, I'm going to need another shower if we sit here much longer."

"There! That!" Morgan shouted in exasperation.

"What?" Reid was just as exasperated.

"Why in the world would you need another shower?"

Suddenly Reid understood. "Oh. No. I'm not feeling guilty."

"Then why?"

To Morgan's complete bewilderment, Reid laughed. "I'm cold. You know I'm not used to being out in the snow. The cold gets into my bones, and the only way I can get truly warm again is to take a hot shower or bath."

Morgan was totally flummoxed. "You're cold?"

"Yes. I'm cold." Reid nodded vigorously. "And, like I said, I know it's probably psychosomatic. It's not like my actual body temperature is low. But I get in the shower, I get warmed up, and then I can handle being out and about until I cool off again. That's all. I'm sure the need will go away entirely once I'm away from all this god-forsaken snow."

"You're cold. You're just cold."

"Yes, Morgan, I'm just cold. And I'd really like to get under the covers before all the heat from the shower wears off."

Morgan chuckled softly and moved away from Reid's bed. "I didn't think anyone wanted to get home more than I do, but I guess maybe you've got me beat."

Reid snuggled in under the blankets. "Hotch says tomorrow. Now, go to sleep, Morgan. The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner tomorrow will come."

"You sound like my mom."

"An excellent person to imitate. Good night, Morgan."

"Good night, Pretty Boy."

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AN: Well, that's it. If you're interested in knowing about Dirty Dancing, it really was filmed in Lake Lure. The cabin scenes were filmed at an old camp, and the dining room scenes were filmed at the Lake Lure Inn. The farm exists, although it is actually in Virginia. They really did practice at Occoneechee Girl Scout Camp. The farm exists, although it is actually in Virginia. I know all this because I used to be a camp counselor at the camp, and Jennifer Gray and I were both interns at the same theatre company right before the movie was made, and I got to be her stand-in, which isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds but is still kinda cool. So I have walked up and down those steps a million times and danced on that stage, etc., etc.


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